


the tricky thing is yesterday we were just children

by noodlebunny



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Death in Childbirth, Edward Elric Swears, Gen, Panic Attacks, Underage Drinking, long title with no capitals im not sorry, rated for language, these kids need hugs, this is super self indulgent sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2018-12-23 22:44:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11999478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodlebunny/pseuds/noodlebunny
Summary: If it weren't for Alphonse, everything would still be fine. Mom would be alive, warm and gentle as ever. She wouldn't be a rotting corpse beneath the earth, killed by giving birth to life.In which Al is five years younger than Ed. Things are a little more complicated.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this idea had been spinning around my head for a while so I thought fuck it!! it's getting written!!! I love Ed being a protective big brother!!!!
> 
> mostly follows canon events, though I did mess with the timeline a little bit.
> 
> this is my first time actually bothering to post one of my fics so. I hope at least someone enjoys it?? comments would make my entire day!! week!! month!! year!!!
> 
> title is taken from a song on the hunger games soundtrack called eyes open. it's really fitting for the elrics imo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8hsVICl7d8k give it a listen while you read maybe??
> 
> edit a few months later: this might get rewritten.... was I, like, drunk when I wrote this?? jesus I can’t belive I thought anything was a good idea ffgdggsgsgs

People say the Fullmetal Alchemist is one of the most skilled alchemists in the military — perhaps even the country. They say he can transmute using only his hands, no circle necessary, and his fighting skills are that of a professional three times his age.

People also say he's a loud, arrogant, undoubtedly evil little brat of a twelve year old.

 _People_ mostly being Roy Mustang.

Maes Hughes is about to find out how much truth his best friend has been spouting this past month, and he’s deriving more than a little excitement from it.

According to what Roy’s team have told him, Edward Elric is a decent kid. Loud and a little arrogant, yes, but that’s to be expected from “an obviously spoiled kid”, to put it in Havoc’s words. Fuery says that he’s on the phone all the time, though, talking to someone called Al. Breda says that if the kid’s disturbed while he's talking to this Al guy he glares like he's imagining how to best kill you with your own shoelaces. Hawkeye says “stop asking me about the Fullmetal Alchemist and go back to your own office”. Yikes.

Maes rests his hand on the handle of Mustang’s office door. He can hear a kid’s voice inside, though his exact words are muffled by the wood.

Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist.

He pushes the handle down and opens the door.

“If he makes me go to one more _fucking town_ to do one more _fucking inspection_ –”

Okay, so it seems that Roy was mostly telling the truth about the loud part.

The kid is slouched in one of the room’s plush chairs, clutching what looks to be a written report. He’s small, even for a twelve year old, and the expression on his face is not unlike that of a grouchy cat.

Exactly as Roy had described.

Maes looks around. Roy’s team had stopped working to greet him when he entered, but now they're back to either writing or idly watching Fullmetal rant. Most are smiling slightly, like watching the kid burn himself out is a welcome distraction from their work.

Maes turns back to Fullmetal, but it seems like he’s done with his tirade by now. Perfect.

“Yo! Is Roy still in?” He forces all the cheer he has into the greeting, just to make sure Roy hears him. Of course he’s still in; no way in hell would Hawkeye let him leave early.

“Yes, he is, Major Hughes.” says Hawkeye. “In his office doing paperwork, as usual.”

“Unfortunately,” grumbles Fullmetal so quietly that Maes doubts he was supposed to hear it.

“Ah-ha! You must be Edward Elric, correct? Roy’s told me so much about you!”

Fullmetal looks like he knows exactly what sort of things Roy might have said about him, and he doesn't look too happy about it.

Maes holds out his hand for Fullmetal to shake. The kid accepts it somewhat warily and Maes shakes enthusiastically.

He hopes his surprise at the kid’s hand being hard metal beneath the white gloves doesn't show on his face. That would be awfully rude, not to mention bad for a first impression.

“Why are you here, Hughes? It’s late.” Roy stands in the open doorway. He looks exhausted.

A bit like a grouchy cat.

Maes has a good internal laugh at that.

“I’m here, Roy, to share some very important information.”

Roy raises his eyebrows. “Oh? Care to elaborate?”

Maes pauses for effect. One, two, three, and…

“My little Elicia’s eight months old today!”

Roy groans. Someone stifles a guffaw. Hawkeye congratulates him.

“Elicia?” says Fullmetal, looking a mixture of entertained and confused at the exchange.

“Yes! My daughter, the most beautiful angel to ever exist!”

“Oh, you've done it now,” says Havoc.

“Watch. He’ll get out the photos in a second,” says Breda.

Maes is all too happy to oblige.

After a good five minutes of showing off his latest family photos, Maes puts his plan into action. He didn't only come here to gloat about his family, after all. Thought that is a decent enough reason alone.

“Where are you staying tonight, Ed? I can call you that, right?” Nice and natural sounding. He’s good at this.

“Uh, yeah, Ed is fine.” He frowns. “And I guess I was just gonna book a hotel room or something…”

Just as Maes suspected he would. Perfect.

“Well, that's no good! It's so late! Stay at mine tonight. My wife cooks the most delicious food.”

Ed looks close to refusing out of politeness, so Maes leaps into action and practically drags the kid from his chair and out the door. Someone calls a gleeful goodbye – probably Havoc – and Roy shouts at Ed not to be late tomorrow. Ed shoots a _fuck you_ back at him.

Maes laughs. He likes this kid already.

Gracia, as always, is infinitely kind and prepared in the face of unexpected guests. There's enough food and more to feed Ed, which is just as well, because it turns out the kid can eat like a demon for someone so small. (Maes quickly learns that mentioning the kid’s height it strictly off-limits, unless he has some kind of death wish.)

What surprises Maes most about Edward Elric is how well he gets on with Elicia. She still hasn't learned to walk yet, but Ed has infinite patience for her almost-one-year-old antics. He coos at her and tells her he likes her hair. Somehow, he gets her to giggle in the way only Maes has ever managed to.

At one point, Elicia notices that one of her new big brother’s arms is harder than the other. Maes thinks Ed will make up an excuse to avoid showing her what’s obviously a prosthetic, but instead he pulls off his coat and glove and lets her small hands inspect the metal. He looks a little unsure at first, like he’s worried she’ll be scared. But when it becomes apparent that she only has wonder for it, he grins and holds it up to the lamp so pretty light dances around the room. She giggles again.

“How did it happen, if you don't mind my asking?” Maes asks, so softly that Ed could pretend he didn't hear if he wanted to.

Maes doesn't miss the way Ed’s breath catches.

“Alchemy accident when I was eleven.” From the way Ed says it, Maes can tell it's not a lie, but not a whole truth, either.

“Your legs are automail too, aren't they?” Not a question, not really.

“Picked it up from the way I walk, huh?”

Perceptive kid.

“I’m sorry that happened to you, Ed. No one deserves that.”

“I don't know, Major Hughes. I think that maybe – maybe I did deserve it.” How can a twelve year old sound so tired? So old and weathered?

There's a story behind Ed’s words, a long and painful one. But one for another time.

So Maes shakes his head and says, “You’re very good with Elicia.”

Ed doesn’t meet Maes’ eyes. “Yeah. I have a little brother.”

“How old?”

“Seven.”

“And he’s back home with your parents?”

“No. Family friend.” Maes doesn't miss the implication there.

_No parents left. No family._

“What’s he like, your little brother?”

“Kind. Gentle. Smart as hell.” The kid’s eyes mist over. Maes gets the feeling that Ed doesn't realise he's smiling.

Ed reaches into a trouser pocket and pulls out a folded photo. It’s of Ed and another little boy who looks very much like a smaller version of him. They're smiling. Ed’s limbs are all flesh, not metal. He looks about ten in it and the smaller boy looks much younger than seven. Maes doesn't want to let himself wonder what it might mean that Ed doesn't carry a more recent picture.

“What’s his name?”

“Alphonse.” Edward says the name reverently, like it's the most precious thing in the whole world, the only thing he has left to love.

It probably is, to him.

“Was he hurt in your… alchemic accident too, Ed?” Maybe Maes is pushing too far, but if he doesn't ask these questions now then the curiosity will eat him alive later. He is in Investigations, after all.

Ed doesn't answer verbally. That's all the confirmation Maes needs that the answer is yes.

Elicia mumbles that she's tired and Maes, ever the loving father, sweeps her up to carry her to her room. He’s halfway through the door when Ed calls after him.

“Major Hughes!”

“Yes, Ed?”

“Can I, uh, use your telephone quickly?”

“Sure you can, kid. It's just in the hallway.”

Ah. So that's why Ed started looking so antsy the darker it got outside. He’s probably late for his frequent calls with “Al”.

Oh.

Al. Alphonse. That makes sense. Maes wants to smack himself for not seeing it immediately.

He tucks Elicia into bed, by which time she’s mostly asleep, saving him from reading her a story, though that's not to say he doesn't enjoy such activities. Silently, he returns to the living room and chooses a seat that has a view of the hall through the open door. He can just see Ed, turned with his back to Maes. He finishes punching a number into the phone.

Does this count as eavesdropping? Maybe. Does it make Maes a bad person? Likely.

“Hey, Al. Sorry I'm calling so late. I hope I didn't wake you or anything.”

Pause.

“Things are – they're fine, here in Central. The Colonel’s still a pain in my – uh, he's really annoying. I’m staying over at the house a really nice guy called Major Hughes. His wife cooked this apple pie that tasted exactly like mom’s.”

Pause.

“Yeah. I’d love for you to try it sometime. When you can eat again.”

Maes starts at that. What does _that_ mean?

“How was your day, Al?”

Pause.

Ed laughs.

“Is that so?” He laughs again. It’s different from the laugh the kid used at dinner. Lighter. “Tell Winry I miss her dumb face too, okay?”

Pause.

Ed sighs.

“Al, you know you can't come. Not yet.”

Pause.

He swallows and when he speaks again his voice is thick.

“Yeah. One day, maybe. When you're older.”

Pause.

“Bye, Al. Go to sleep now, okay? I’ll call tomorrow. Not sure when though.”

Pause.

“I love you too. So much.”

Ed sets the receiver down and sucks in a rattling breath, as if steadying himself against tears. Seconds later, he returns to the living room and a excuses himself to bed, thanking Gracia for dinner. When he was on the phone, his voice sounded heavy and sad and too old for his years. Now, there’s no sign of such troubles on his young face.

Maes sits on the couch for a long time after everyone else is asleep, thinking about the kid in the other room who knows pain far too well.

\---

When Ed is five years old, he wakes one morning to find that his father is gone. He asks his mother when he will be back. Instead of answering, she smiles and asks if he wants more dinner. Ed may be young, but he knows what that means.

His father isn't coming home.

Not a month later, his mother discovers she is pregnant with a second child. A little brother or sister for Ed to play with, she says. Ed wonders if his father would have stayed, had he known. He doesn't think he would have.

After seven months, the baby is born, when Ed is barely six. His arms shake slightly as it – _him_ , Ed reminds himself, the baby is a boy, his little brother – is given to him to hold. His new sibling is small and pink with little tufts of golden hair just like Ed’s. He had been crying restlessly before, but when Ed holds him he quiets contentedly. Staring at the baby’s scrunched up face, Ed doesn't really understand why people think babies are so cute. Maybe it’s just this baby who’s so weird looking – he had overheard Aunt Sara telling Uncle Yuriy that the baby was early, and therefore small. That might have something to do with it.

“Alphonse,” says his mother, croaking the word like it took all the effort in the world. “That will be his name. Your father always liked it most, but he let me choose your name, Edward…”

Ed studies his mother’s face properly. She is still bedridden, sweat sheening her pallid skin, her kind face gaunt. Her hand, so thin and frail and callused, reaches to cup his cheek. It trembles violently all the way up.

“My boys…” She smiles weakly, looking like she wants to say more but not having the effort.

Her hand drops.

Ed is only vaguely aware of Alphonse being taken from his arms, of Aunt Sara rushing to his mother’s bedside, of being ushered out the room swiftly. Later, he realises that he had been saying one word over and over, hoarse and desperate and increasing in volume even after the door was closed.

_“Mom, mom, mom…”_

\---

Ed knows it isn't his brother's fault that their mother is dead, not really. He’s just a baby; he didn't ask to be born.

He knows, but the resentment is still there.

If it weren't for Alphonse, everything would still be fine. Mom would be alive, warm and gentle as ever. She wouldn't be a rotting corpse beneath the earth, killed by giving birth to life.

They live with Winry and her family for a while, until her parents leave and don't come back and her granny starts working constantly as soldiers injured in the eastern conflict flock to Rockbell Automail. By then, Ed is almost eight and Al almost two, old enough to toddle around clumsily on his small legs. He doesn't say much other than occasional words like _big brother_ and to point out things of extreme importance, like birds and cats and the colour of the sky.

Ed leaves Al with granny when he and Winry go to school during the day. Sometimes he stays the night at the Rockbell house, but there are times when granny has more work than usual, and simply making dinner for three children is too much for her. On those days, he takes Al back to his old home after school ends. The rooms that once felt just right in size and warmth are now cold and dead and far too big. He makes meals from what he buys in town using the recipes his mother scribbled on envelopes. They never taste the same as hers.

Al has nightmares all the time. He cries a lot at the smallest things and Ed would be lying if he said he never felt the temptation to just stop caring, stop running to Al when he woke up in tears. What does he have to cry about anyway? What has he suffered compared to Ed?

Ed studies. He pours over the books his father left behind, teaching himself more advanced alchemy and learning about the world outside the town he's never left.

Eventually, he reads about the ultimate sin. Human transmutation.

An idea blossoms. It grows. Eventually, it grips Ed so tightly he spends every night by candlelight, working and reading and theorising.

He's going to see mom again.

“Brother?”

Ed turns to find Al peeking round the door to the basement, his small, round face illuminated barely by the yellow light of the candles. Ed didn't realise they had gotten so low.

“What are you doing up, Al? It's late. Go to sleep.” Ed turns back to his work. He doesn't have time for this.

“I can't sleep, Brother.” Al gulps audibly, as if gathering courage. “You used… you used to tuck me in.”

“Mm-hm.” Why can't Al understand how important this work is?

“I-I never see you anymore. You're always in here. I don't understand. Was… was it something I did?”

Suddenly, Ed feels four again. He remembers how it felt to be in Al’s place, always stealing glances into the office of the father who never had time for him. The loneliness that ached so deeply he still feels it. He sets his pencil down.

In a few steps, he crosses the room to stand in front of his little brother. Al shrinks back as if fearing reprimand. When did he start doing that?

He takes the toddler’s hand. He hates himself for how shocked Al looks at the mere feeling of it.

“You're right, Al. I’m sorry. It was nothing you did. How about I read you a story before bed? We can play tomorrow too.”

Al perks up at that, smiling like Ed just gave him the world.

So Ed reads Al a story, his favourite one, and he plays with him the next day too, and the one after that. He almost forgets about the research and the sin he is preparing to commit to see his mother again.

 _Almost_ is such an awful word.

\---

An alchemist passes through one stormy day, an imposing woman with hair and eyes like spilled black ink. She performs alchemy with just a simple clap of her palms and Ed knows she is the one he must be taught by.

He begs her to take him on as her student, and perhaps he is a sorry sight, drenched in rainwater and holding his little brother on his back. Perhaps that is what convinces her to accept him.

“How old are you, boy?” she barks, though Ed gets the feeling she could be a lot more scary if she wanted to be.

“Nine. Almost ten.” He is proud of how steady his voice stays.

“And your brother?”

“He's four years old.”

“Too young. He’ll have to stay here.”

“No. Where I go, Al goes.” Ed surprises even himself with the defiance in those words. He cares about his little brother a thousand times more than he did a year ago, but to give up what might be his one chance of seeing his mother again just to stay with Al…

Surely the woman would refuse now. It was one thing to take Ed into her care, but a toddler as well – she’d have to be insane to accept.

Something in her unreadable expression softens.

“Alright,” she says, “but you better be able to look after him right. I'm not your mother, or whatever.”

Ed nods. He knows.

Training with Teacher is the hardest thing Ed has ever done. She shows no mercy when sparring with him, and mistakes are not received kindly. But still, he is grateful. He will have to be strong when he attempts human transmutation.

She is kinder with Al, almost like an entirely different person. She smiles softly at him and plays with him whenever she has the time. She cooks whatever Al requests, which isn't much, because Al is conscious of never being too demanding, so considerate even at his young age. Her husband, Sig, gets this wistful look on his face when his wife spends time with Al, like he is sad for a time that never happened.

Ed is surprised momentarily when Teacher asks him about his mother, what she was like and how she died and so much more. He has never talked with anyone but Al about his mother; in Resembool, everyone already knew. He finds it hurts a little to talk about everything he lost, but he doesn't mind it. He comes to like it, even.

He's going to get it back, after all.

Every day of training is one day closer to seeing mom’s smile again.

\---

The circle in the basement is perfect.

Its white chalk lines are clean and clinically precise, each symbol carefully selected and crafted for this exact purpose. Years of theorising and planning went into this circle and it was worth it all because it's so, so perfect.

Ed is eleven and his little brother is six. Six, the age Ed was when Al was born and his mother died and everything went to hell.

He is only moments away from making everything right again, the way it once was. The way it should be. Giddiness swells in his belly.

“Are you sure about this, brother?” whispers Al. “Maybe this isn't such a good idea.”

“Don't be such a coward, Al. I know what I'm doing. You want to meet mom, don't you?”

Al gulps. He knows alchemy. He’s good at it too, after growing up guided by Ed and Teacher and the books left behind by a father he never knew. And Ed has told him so much about their mother. Of course he's curious to know what it might be like to have one.

But still, he cannot quell the uneasiness thrumming in his veins, telling him to _run, run, run_ before it's too late. He trusts his big brother, though. If Ed says it's okay, then who is Al to argue?

They cut open their fingers and spill the blood into the tray of ingredients, as Ed calls them. Like the human body is just the stew Ed says mom used to make, ready to be assembled.

Al tries not to think about how Ed often attempts to make mom’s stew, and how every time he throws the botched result out in dismay.

In unison, they press their hands to the circle. Ed’s grin is wicked in the purple glow, gleeful and so very sure that nothing could possibly go wrong with his perfect calculations.

Then Al is deconstructed before him, his little brother’s screams ringing in his ears. He opens his eyes to an endless expanse of white nothingness, a stone doorway, and a blank figure with a grin just like Ed’s own.

The gate opens, and Ed sees the Truth.

He begs the grinning figure to show it to him again, show him more, give him all the knowledge in the world, god, he's so desperate for it—

“I’m afraid that's all I can show you for the toll you've payed.”

Ed frowns. “Toll?”

Then the pain begins.

His leg is ripped from his body in seconds, the whole leg, from where it attaches to his torso and down, down, down until it’s just gone, empty space and pain and screaming, god, oh god—

The same happens to his other leg before he can scream a second time.

Through the thick fog of pain, he can just make out that Truth is speaking again, each word filled with joyous rigour.

“I had to take both legs. Your brother I took all of, of course, but he's just so small, barely even worth taking. You don't mind compensating for him, do you?”

Ed screams louder.

He drags himself across the stone floor to where the suit of armour lies and with shaking hands he draws a bloody seal on the metal. God, oh god, there's so much blood, he smeared a dark trail of it, it's all over him, his clothes, his palms, his face, warm and sticky, _and the smell_ —

He claps his hands. Light flashes and electricity crackles. Pain flares in his arm – no, where his arm used to be. Everything goes black.

He swims in out of consciousness for the rest of the night, only catching glimpses of the world around him. The armour carries him out the house, even as wind and rain batters it mercilessly. Al’s voice comes from it, high and panicked and impossibly scared. Someone, a young girl, screams – Winry? Bright lights flash and an old woman’s voice shouts commands. Pressure is applied where his limbs once were, now just gaping stumps.

The whole time, the only voice Ed can decipher is his little brother’s. It sounds like it does when Al is about to cry, wobbly and faint. But he doesn't cry, doesn't wail. Ed wants to comfort Al, to hold him close and ruffle his hair like he does when he has bad dreams, but he can’t move or speak through the pain. He blacks out again.

\---

A man named Lieutenant Colonel Mustang visits. Ed doesn't speak.

But he listens.

And he plans.

\---

Ed gets automail. The surgery that should've taken three years for someone his size takes a year, and the pain of metal welding to flesh, steel drilling into bone, is a hundred times worse than the pain of losing limbs.

The pain is nothing compared to the guilt.

All through the procedures, Ed can only turn the Flame Alchemist’s words over and over in his head until he whispers them in his sleep.

_So you attempted human transmutation and forced your little brother into it too._

__

__

_Forced._

Granny shouted at Mustang for that comment, but Ed hardly heard her because, fuck, Mustang was right. Al was six years old. A child. Too young to really release what he was doing, too naive to do anything but blindly obey his big brother. Al trusted him more than anything and now he was trapped in an unfeeling metal shell, barely able to understand why.

_Forced._

Ed hadn't cried when his father left or his mother died, not even at the funeral when they nailed her in a box and lowered it into the cold earth.

Now, with his little brother sitting on the other side of the door unable to sleep or eat or _feel_ , sobs rip through him so hard he chokes.

_Forced._

\---

“Are you leaving soon, Brother?” Al is sitting cross-legged on Ed’s bed, a tabby kitten in his big leather hands. Ed had bought it for him not a week earlier from a lady down the road whose cat had given birth and was selling the babies cheap. Al was going to need a friend other than Winry and Granny while Ed was away. A cat would have to do.

“Yeah. I’m heading out to Central tomorrow morning, Al.” He chooses a small photo of mom from the wall and places it in his open suitcase. Her smile in it is wide and genuine; it was taken before dad left.

“Will you be home to spend your twelfth birthday with us?” Al pets the kitten clumsily. Ed silently wonders why Al bothers if he can't even feel the fur.

“No, I don't think so.”

“Oh. I’ll miss you, Brother.” Al lifts the kitten up to Ed’s face. “Chuckles will miss you too, won't you, Chuckles?” Apparently, Al has named his cat Chuckles after the strange way it meows. Exactly the sort of name a seven-year-old would give a pet.

Ed smiles. Al probably would have smiled back, if he were able.

Taking Al with him would be too dangerous, Ed had concluded. Once he was a state alchemist — and he _would_ become one — he would be doing military work all over the country, as well as conducting his own perilous search for the Philosopher’s Stone. And while Al could fight decently enough, he was still seven. He’d been through enough already, and Ed would be damned if he made his little brother go through any more shit.

So for now, Al would stay in Resembool where it was safe. Neither Granny nor Winry liked the idea of Ed going off on his own, but they disliked the idea of Al being dragged along with him even more.

Maybe Ed will let Al come when he's older.

He hopes the day when Al has to join him in his search will never arrive, that his little brother will be back in his own body by the time he is eight.

Somehow, Ed knows that it’s a useless hope.

\---

Ed stands in front of the mirror in his hotel room and inspects the new injury. It’s stitched up already, but still looks wicked nonetheless, running in a jagged line from his left ear and across his nose and stopping just before his right eye. It’ll scar, no doubt.

The guys he’d been fighting were skilled but not particularly dangerous — not compared to him. There’d just been so many of them, and one had caught him unawares from behind. He’d turned just in time to get a knife dragged across his face. That was the problem with fighting alone with no one to watch his back.

Maybe it was time he let Al come along after all.

It wasn't like Al was seven anymore. He was nine to Ed’s fourteen, and he hadn't just been sitting on his metal ass for the past two years, either. He’d been training with teacher again in Dublith, except this time he was old enough to learn martial arts and advanced alchemy properly. Teacher didn't go easy on him, if his phone calls were any indication.

She hadn't been happy to learn what they had done – what _Ed_ had done, because it wasn't Al’s fault. He had been forced into committing the sin, and they all knew it.

She wasn't angry, either.

Just sad.

Ed visits as often as possible, which isn’t often enough. Al’s overjoyed to see him every time, and Ed spends the long nights sitting up with him and telling him about his travels. He knows Al likes that; his nights are spent alone with only his thoughts. It’s the least Ed can do to keep him company for a few of them.

Of course, it also means Al ends up begging to come with him every time.

And every time Ed answers with a stern _not yet_.

But he’s been having near scrapes with death almost every week now. He’s collecting nasty scars like stamps, and it probably wouldn't be too long until a knife found its way into something more important. Having a near-indestructible suit of armour to watch his back definitely wouldn't do any harm.

Al wasn't indestructible, though. He could still die. And to drag a child, a nine year old, into that kind of life – what would that make Ed?

No more of a monster than he already is, surely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! congrats to making it to the end of this mess
> 
> i do have plans for at least one more chapter, but whether it actually gets written depends entirely on whether I have motivation, which depends mostly on whether I get any feedback. so it's up to you guys!! if no one's interested in more the I'll just leave it how it is, probably.
> 
> also, school starts tomorrow. this only got written because i was alone for a day with no wifi on my fifteenth birthday. idk if I'll even have time to write anything (((cries)))


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so this chapter was going to be the last one but i was taking a while to finish it so!! posting it now instead! it's not that long, sorry. there should be one more chapter to come.
> 
> some events in this are more 03 than brotherhood (ed meets nina when he's twelve for example) but the ending will definitely adhere to brotherhood.
> 
> also, kind of sort of hamilton reference at one point or two. lemme know if you spot it.
> 
> warnings for some graphic violence.

Ed is twelve years old the first time he kills.

In the months before taking the state alchemist exam, he stays with a state alchemist and his daughter. She is a four year old with long brown braids and a laugh like a tinkling bell, and when she smiles, Ed smiles too. Though she is unlike Al in personality when he was that age – Al was all shy smiles and hiding behind Ed’s legs, whereas this girl has the confidence of a lion – the way she calls him _big brother_ reminds Ed painfully of his own little brother.

Maybe he could not give Al the childhood he deserved, but he can at least try for Nina. He spends time with her every chance he gets, even cooking meals for her, while her father works and works. Ed tries not to feel any resentment towards the man for neglecting his daughter so.

It must be awfully important work, after all. Ed leaves him to it.

It happens, as so many desperately tragic things in Ed’s life seem to, during a thunderstorm. He finds Mr. Tucker in his laboratory one afternoon, rain lashing the walls outside. The man is kneeling beside a chimera, practically cooing over it.

The chimera speaks, and that is all the information Ed needs to work out why he can't find Nina and Alexander.

_Big brother._

He slams Tucker against the wall before he even registers what he’s doing. Anger courses through him so violently he trembles with the sheer force of it, and Tucker is speaking but Ed can't hear him, not really, and then he’s slamming his fist, his metal one, into the man’s face.

Tucker’s head cracks against the wall with every blow. He finds a steady rhythm.

_One, crack. Two, crack. Three, crack._

There's a voice in Ed’s head saying _if you carry on he’ll die_. The voice sounds like Alphonse.

_One, crack. Two, crack. Three, crack._

_Stop it! He’ll die!_ cries Al.

Except it’s not Al. Just a voice in his head.

_One, crack. Two, crack. Three, crack._

_You’re going to kill him!_ says the voice.

 _Good,_ says Ed.

He doesn't stop punching, hard and fast and hateful, and eventually Ed hears the sickening snap and pop of Tucker’s bones as he mushes them to gorey pulp. His temple caves in, followed by his right eye becoming slush; his glasses shatter and glass shards embed themselves in his skin. Tucker doesn't even have time to scream through the onslaught. The knuckles on Ed’s gloves have split open, and now there's flesh and muscle and hair clogging up the joints of his automail hand. The air, heavy with coppery blood, smells like it did after human transmutation. The smell of death.

_One, crack. Two, crack. Three, crack._

Ed keeps punching long after Tucker’s face is unrecognisable, just a mass of red-stained pink flesh. The man stopped breathing a while ago – minutes, hours, Ed wouldn't know.

Nina – or is it Alexander? – pulls him out of his murderous stupor by yanking at the hem of his coat, now stained darker crimson than it was before.

_Big brother._

Tucker’s body falls to the floor. Nina starts nosing at it immediately through broken whimpers of _daddy hurting_ , his blood matting her fur. Slowly, slowly, Ed moves past her and into the hall.

Ed calls Mustang in a haze. He doesn't want to talk about what just happened, what Tucker did, what _Ed_ did, because if he speaks about it then he’ll cry, or scream, or worse.

So he just says, “Tucker’s house. Come quickly. Please. _Please_.” His voice wobbles and finally breaks on the last word. He can hear Mustang protesting on the other end, _demanding what happened, what's wrong, tell me now!_

Ed hangs up.

_Big brother._

\---

When he arrives at the house, Mustang doesn't know what he expects to find.

It isn't this.

The boy, the twelve year old that _he_ brought to Central, is curled in the corner of a dark room and clutching a bloody chimera to his chest. He strokes the animal like he doesn't realise he’s doing it, leaving smears of red blood in the white fur. Mustang thinks the noises the chimera are making might be words, but he dismisses it, because there are bigger things to worry about.

Like the man sprawled next the boy, his face nothing more than bloody mush. What’s left of Shou Tucker.

When Edward looks up, the expression he wears is just as hollow as the one he wore the first time Mustang met him.

Except this time there is no fire in those eyes.

Mustang does not make it to the bathroom before he heaves up the contents of his stomach.

\---

Edward has been the Fullmetal Alchemist for two years. It feels like longer.

There are days when he relishes being the military’s prize show pony, days when every town he saves and every _smile for the picture_ makes him feel invincible. He is the People's Alchemist, and they love him.

Then there are the days when he wants to itch his skin off his body if only to get people to stop looking, stop each _sir_ addressed to him and just be a child, a fourteen year old, for once in his short life. On those days, he can barely dress himself, so he just curls up in bed like the pathetic thing he is and lets every sick thing he's done or seen or felt fill his lungs and drown him from the inside out.

He dreams of his little brother screaming his name; he dreams of flesh tearing as his limbs are ripped from his body; he dreams of a little girl and her dog, now dead; he dreams of beating a man to death with his own small fists.

God, he just wants to rest.

But he can't. He can't rest. Not until his brother can too.

\---

Ed picks Al up from Central City Station just as the sun dips below the skyline and the world changes from being swathed in warm yellow light to dripping in the blue of nighttime. He had wanted to go to Dublith to pick Al up from there, but Teacher and Sig insisted that they would escort the nine year old to Central themselves, since they’d like to spend some time in the city regardless. He exchanges a quick greeting with the couple, and they leave to find their hotel before darkness falls completely. Now it’s just Ed and Al on the platform.

“It's been a few months since I've seen you, Brother,” says Al, his voice still that of a six year old’s, tinny in the armour, even though three years have passed since he was that age. “I think you might have gotten taller.”

“You really think so?” says Ed, not bothering to hide his excitement. He blushes pink when Al laughs. “You're a rotten little brother…” he mutters, maybe a little too petulantly. Al laughs even more. Ed glares, but can't stop the smile that tugs at his mouth.

“I’ve never been to Central before.” Al breathes the words with so much wonder that Ed can't help but smile wider. “I’ve never been much of anywhere other than Resembool and Dublith, but now that I'm going to travel with you, I'll see so many places!” Al bounces on the balls of his feet, metal clanking with each movement.

Ed’s smile falters. To anyone else, it would be unnoticeable, but Al knows his brother like he knows his own mind. He sighs.

“You know it'll be dangerous, don't you, Al? I’m trusting you to be responsible.”

“I know, Brother.”

“And if I tell you to do something, you do it. If I say run, you run.”

“I _know_ , Brother–”

“I’m serious. You're going straight back home if you put yourself in danger.”

Al shifts from foot to foot, studying the tiled floor. When he looks up again, Ed’s expression has softened, in the way it always does when they have conversations like this; he can never be harsh to Al for long.

“I missed you. I missed seeing you every day,” Al says, and it's times like these he wishes he were able to cry, because he has three years of pain bottled up inside him and little way of releasing it. He can only use words. And sometimes, words are not enough.

“Missed you too, Al.” In that moment, Ed doesn't sound fourteen, but an old man in a child’s body.

The moment passes.

“How ‘bout i show you round the city?” he chirps.

“Aren't you too tired? It's getting late.”

Ed waves him off. “Nah, I slept earlier. Oh, I know, I’ll show you this square with these real pretty street lamps, you'll love that, and then we can check out the night market!”

Al knows Ed must be sleepy – even if he did nap earlier, he normally needs at least twelve hours sleep a day to even function properly, along with a few tons of food. But for some reason the thought of spending the night as Al usually does, alone with only himself for company, makes him feel uneasy to his core.

“Okay, Brother. But let's not stay up too late.”

“Jeez, Al, when did you become the responsible one? I’m the one who used to tuck you in every night, y'know…”

They bicker lightheartedly the entire way through Ed’s tour, quickly falling into an easy rhythm. Every time he sees his brother, Al is a little amazed that they still get on so well despite spending months apart with only phone calls for contact.

Ed very almost gets arrested at one point for what he calls “something only a little bit illegal”, but with some apologetic words from Al and a flash of Ed’s pocket watch they manage to move on with only a warning. Al scolds Ed for the next five minutes while Ed grumbles about how undignified it is to be told off by his kid brother. He buys plenty of food from the market and whatever trinkets Al takes a liking to, even if he doesn't ask for them outright.

They end up staying out until the sun rises. Ed is practically sleepwalking by then, but he refuses to go back to his hotel room, because his little brother is here, and they are happy. Properly happy.

Ed wants to make the unfamiliar feeling last for as long as possible.

\---

A whole thirty minutes later than he’s supposed to, Ed finally shows up to receive his next mission, looking refined in only his pants, tank top, and one shoe. His hair might've been braided at one point, but now it bears closer resemblance to a bird’s nest. He trips on the threshold of the office and only stays upright when Hawkeye jumps to catch him. Havoc snickers and Ed briefly considers throwing his remaining shoe at him.

“Late night, Edward?” queries Hawkeye, showing only blank neutrality at Ed’s disheveled state.

“Huh? Oh… right, yeah…” mumbles Ed, looking alarmingly like he might keel over at any second.

That's when a seven foot tall suit of armour ambles into the room.

They all stiffen and Hawkeye almost reaches for her gun, but Edward waves her off. The armour seems to shrink in on itself, looking as embarrassed as something with no expression can, which is impressive in itself.

“It's chill, you guys. This is my brother, Alphonse.”

Everyone and their mother knows Edward Elric has a little brother. The kid’s normally pretty mysterious about himself, but he gets as bad as Hughes if you give him a chance to talk about Alphonse; Breda and Havoc enjoy setting Fullmetal on new recruits by tricking them into mentioning family.

“Oh, your brother... the eight year old, right?” says Fuery.

“I’m nine now,” says Alphonse, puffing out his metal chest. Fuery stammers a sorry. Ed laughs.

“You’re late, Fullmetal,” says the Colonel. When the hell did he get there?

“Whatever, asshole.”

Mustang – the bastard – grins.

“It's good to see you again, Alphonse. I don't know if you remember me, but we met a few years ago.” The Colonel easily reaches over Ed to shake Al’s hand. Ed splutters indignantly.

“That's an interesting outfit you're wearing, Alphonse,” says Falman.

“It's, uh, part of my training!” says Al at the exact same time Ed says “Uh, yeah, it's his hobby!”

They all silently make a collective decision not to mention Alphonse Elric’s appearance again.

“And here I thought Fullmetal couldn't get any smaller,” the Colonel says, smirking wider. “Why, next to you, Alphonse, I can barely even see your brother…” 

Ed shouts loud enough to be heard on the other side of the building.

After the commotion's over, the Colonel drags a still slightly steaming Fullmetal into his office. The door closes behind them with a _click_ , and Mustang’s expression very suddenly mirrors the calm before a storm.

“So you're dragging your little brother along now too, are you?” he grinds out.

“What d’you care, bastard?” mutters Ed with equal ferocity.

“You realise how much danger you could be putting him in.” Not a question.

“He can handle it.”

“Can he?”

Ed is silent. He doesn't break Mustang’s stare.

“Because it seems very much to me,” continues the Colonel, “like you're willing to drag a nine year old child into the very life that fucked you up so thoroughly.”

“I am _not_ fucked up–”

“Really, now?” bites Mustang, and Ed can't help but flinch at how mockingly the words are spat. “You have blood on your hands, Fullmetal. You've taken lives. Anyone who can say that is fucked up, whether they know it or not.”

Ed is still silent.

“Tell me, how often do you dream of the people you've killed? Every night?” Mustang’s almost shouting now. He's never been more glad the walls are soundproof. “How often do you think about the moment that you became a killer when you were, what, twelve? Is that what you want for Alphonse?”

“ _Don't act so self-righteous when you're the one who dragged me into this life!_ ” As soon as he’s said them, Ed wishes he could take the words back, because they're a lie. Mustang gave him the idea to become a dog of the military; Ed was the one who dragged himself here.

Mustang’s stricken expression tells Ed that they're words the bastard’s imagined Ed saying a hundred times before.

_You're the one who dragged me into this life._

“Al won't be killing anyone.” Ed swallows. “And he won't be getting killed, either. I'll make sure of it.”

This time, it's the Colonel’s turn to be silent.

“I love my brother more than anything in this life, bastard. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think he could handle it.” Ed smiles, the one that means he doesn't know he’s smiling, and continues,‘‘’Sides, he’s a strong kid. I've never beaten him in a fight, y’know.” He sounds proud, like a doting mother.

Ed leaves with his mission soon after. Mustang slumps in his chair, impossibly drained.

“Are you alright, sir?”

He opens one eye to find Hawkeye standing before him. Her words are caring, but her tone professional. Emotionless.

“You didn't hear any of that, did you, Lieutenant?”

“No, sir.”

He sighs heavily. “That kid’s going to give me health problems. I’m going to die young and it’ll be all his fault.”

“Better finish your paperwork then, sir, before you're too dead to do it.”

Roy smiles. Riza smiles back.

\---

Al takes to the constant travelling and fighting rather well – better than Ed expected, at least. He forgets, sometimes, that his little brother is no innocent, that he was the one to find Ed limbless in a sea of blood.

That's not to say Al isn't still, well, a child. He may be mature for his age, but he still gets grumpy when Ed forbids him from going somewhere, or gets childishly excited when the train starts to move. Ed is glad that Al can still find small happinesses, glad that he hasn't messed him up completely.

The brothers are a few months into travelling together when October begins. For the first two days of the month, things are fine. Great, even; the weather outside is stunning, all crisp air and red-hued leaves. Al finds a stray cat outside their hotel – they're staying in a small town on the western edge of the country at the time, investigating a lead on the Philosopher’s Stone – and in a rare show of kindness, Ed allows Al to keep the thing for a while. That makes Al happy, which in turn makes Ed happy, and things are good.

Then it's the third of October. A thunderstorm hits.

For the past two years, Ed has spent each October third doing something, anything, just to take his mind off the memories that flood in with that godawful date. Last year, after a long day of getting into a decent amount of trouble, he had trudged back to wherever he was staying and gotten horrendously drunk on stolen alcohol (he had left money for it, obviously, because no one would sell alcohol to a thirteen year old, even if he was a state alchemist).

This year, he has Al with him, and the ferocious weather prevents him from even opening the window. He feels trapped. Caged like a dog.

Ed hates thunderstorms. Awful things happen during them.

_Mom’s funeral._

He hates how weak he becomes during storms. He hates how one clap of thunder makes him feel eleven again, his brother gone, gone, gone as his own thick, warm blood coats his skin.

_The human transmutation._

Pulling the sheets over himself, Ed curls up tighter, still dressed only in his boxers and shirt, cold automail leaching away any warmth left in him. Each shiver is a violent tremor, but Ed can't tell if it's from the cold or the memories or both.

_Nina._

His long hair pools around him, getting in his mouth and eyes. He yanks at it mercilessly, letting the pain pull him back into the present. When he looks at his hands, there are gold clumps of hair stuck in the joints of his automail. He bites back a sob.

“Brother.”

Oh, god, he had forgotten Al was in the room too, silent and motionless as he is. He shouldn't have to see his big brother like this. A cocktail of embarrassment, shame and loathing curdle in his gut.

The sheet is pulled back and a leather hand rests on his shoulder. Ed buries his head in the pillow.

“Brother?”

“’M sorry, Al. It's my fault.” He couldn't sound more pathetic if he tried. He should stop now, before he says something he regrets. “I’m sorry I got you stuck like that. I’m sorry. it's my fault, it's my fault, _it's my fault_.” The words rush together, sticky like dough in his mouth.

“Maybe it is your fault.”

Ed can’t breathe now, his throat closing up entirely, because Al just admitted it, there's no escaping it, the awful truth that it's his fault, his fault, his fault–

“But even so, I’m not angry at you.”

What?

“Maybe it's your fault. Maybe you should have known better. But you were a child too, Ed.” Ed used to calm Al down from nightmares with the voice Al is using now. The wrongness of it all shakes Ed further. “So I don't blame you. And… even though it's okay to be sad, self-blame won't get you anywhere.”

Ed looks at his brother. Al’s red eyes stare back at him, unreadable. This is so, so wrong. Al shouldn't be the one comforting him.

“So, for what it's worth…” continues Al, “I forgive you, Brother.”

Ed tries to say thank you, to let Al know how much that means to him, but his throat won't work, so he does the next best thing, and mouths the words. Al’s huge frame climbs on the small mattress with him, precarious in a way that would have been funny had it not been so tragic, and holds him close. Ed embraces him as far as his short arms can reach.

For a while, he can almost pretend the cold metal of his brother is a warm body, and that Al can feel every one of Ed’s tears dripping onto his chestplate.

\---

Time passes quicker with Al around. Ed can't tell if that's a good thing or not; on one hand, it means his long days aren't quite so exhausting, but it also means that every day without a lead on the Stone feels like a waste. Months pass with no real progress. There are times where they think they've come close, that this is it, this is what they've been working towards for the past three years. The solution to their suffering feels so close they can almost reach out and touch it, only to find it’s just another fake, and their hope is doused like a candle flame between thumb and forefinger. Ed can't help but find it a cruel imitation of when he reached for his brother’s hand that day in the basement, almost making it but not quite.

Yes, their hope is a candle, and the wax has almost run out. The flame is flickering.

In the month of Al’s tenth birthday, by which Ed is already fifteen and they are in the small space of time where Ed is six years older, not five, they return to Central after yet another bust. Liore had seemed promising at first – Ed had let himself hope, just for a second. It had all felt too good to be true.

Sometimes, Ed hates when his feelings are right.

The train makes a stop at a small town halfway back to Eastern Command, and Ed insists on getting off to buy food, complaining that he hasn't eaten since lunch “a whole three hours ago” and now he’s going to pass out.

“You can stay here, Al. I'll be back soon,” Ed says flippantly, departing into the biting January air. Ugh, it was so warm in Liore, and now he’s freezing his balls off. He rubs circles into his skin on his chest where it connects with the automail.

The platform is empty. It seems pointless for the train to even stop, but Ed’s not complaining. He can't go another hour without eating. Finding a food vender, he orders whatever's hot to go. While he waits, he leans against the wall and pulls his stupid flimsy red coat around him, squeezing his eyes shut and wishing he could fall asleep right here.

He’s on the verge of sleep when a hand comes down on his shoulder and he spins on his heel, stance ready for a fight, only to find it’s just Al. He slumps. Ed can almost imagine Al raising an eyebrow.

“What’s got you so wound up, Brother?”

Ed closes his eyes again. “All this fighting, I guess. Always watching our backs. _Wound up_ has kinda been my constant state for the past four years.” He opens his eyes again and smiles. “But hey, now we can watch each other's backs!”

“Yeah. I guess so,” says Al. Even though Ed can't see his brother’s expression, he recognises that voice, the flat note in it.

“Hey, what's wrong?” Ed reaches a hand out to take Al’s in his, but Al moves out of reach. Ed frowns. “Why didn't you stay on the train?”

“Felt like moving around,” says Al, voice still flat. A beat passes, and then he continues, “I really thought this might be the one, you know. I thought… I thought we might have found it. The Philosopher’s Stone. Why did I let myself think that, Brother?”

Ed is at a loss. His little brother has always been the positive one, the bright rays of light peeking through the never ending rain.

“It's okay to hope, Al. Besides, I think we might be getting close. You'll be back in your own body soon, I prom–”

_“That's what you always say, and it's always a lie!”_

Al has never been this angry before. Hell, has Al ever really _been_ angry? Ed opens his mouth to comfort him, apologise, anything, but before he can speak–

“No, Brother. I don't want to hear any of it.” Al’s words are vicious in a way Ed didn't know he was capable of being. They feel like knives twisting in his gut, sharp enough to leave scars. “You always say that we’re close. Every phone call you used to make, when I sat at home because you _left me there_ , just like dad left _you_ , you would say you think you're _close_ , but it was a lie! It always has been!”

Ed doesn't know what to say, so he stands and takes it. How can he defend himself against the truth?

“I can't even remember what it feels like to be real.”

Ed stares at his little brother. The knives in his gut turn to ice.

_Real?_

“It was four years ago that I last felt anything,” continues Al, “and I don't even remember what it was like. I was a little kid. I can't remember how it feels to eat or dream or feel the fucking _air_!”

Ed barely registers that his little brother swore, because there's something bigger swelling inside him now. Something feral.

But Al isn't stopping. “Every night while you sleep there's nothing I can do but sit and _exist_ , and what's even the point of that? And I think – I think about how maybe I should stop trying to get my original body back. You can't miss what you've never known, can you? Because it's been so long that I don't know what it is to be real anymore!”

That's the last straw for Ed. The feral thing explodes; not in a storm of screams and tears, but in a calm that settles around him like a burial shroud.

“Real?” he breathes, soft enough to be carried away by the howling winter wind.

Al stills.

“I’m glad you're angry, Al, because you deserve it. Hell, you deserve anger more than anyone I've ever met. But don't ever, _ever_ , say you're not real. You don't need to have skin or bones or any of that bullshit to be real.” He growls every word like a curse. His curse. “You're my little brother, and you're as real as it fucking gets.” He’s panting by the end of it, the cold air and the anger thrumming beneath his skin making his face flush red. His legs threaten to give out, and Al must see it, because he grabs Ed by the shoulders until he's the only thing keeping him steady.

Al laughs, a broken thing born not of amusement but of the despair of a little boy who can barely stay sane. Ed joins in. They must look pretty crazy, a kid and a suit of armour sob-laughing on an empty platform in an empty town. Neither brother finds the energy to care.

“Sorry, Brother. That was stupid,” says Al between laughs.

“It was a bit,” says Ed.

Just then the food vendor shouts at Ed to collect his meal. Ed wanders over and shoves the takeaway box under his arm. He’s about to tell the dude to be a little more polite when his brother shouts.

“Brother! The train's leaving!”

Ed hears the departure whistle before he turns around, and when he does his heart thumps faster as the train starts to clear the station.

“Quick, Al!”

It's difficult, running with the food under his arm, and Ed has half a mind to wait for the next train, but he distantly realises that the luggage is still onboard. Al makes it to the train before Ed does, and his metal joints clang as he hauls himself onto it. The wheels pick up speed at an alarming rate.

“Come on, Ed!” yells Al as he reaches out his hand for his brother. Ed jumps, hand outstretched, and for an awful moment he’s reminded of the basement in their old house, of the human transmutation, of reaching for Al's hand that night and not making it.

Their hands connect. There's a brief moment of weightlessness as he's swung up and over the rails, and then he’s safe, the countryside whirling past, and Al is by his side.

This time when they laugh together, it's not a broken thing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhh I hope that was okay?? I really can't tell if I'm making this interesting enough lmao it's rlly self indulgent. there isn't much plot tbh I just wanted to explore how character's relationships would change in this au
> 
> I have a vague idea of what'll happen next, but if anyone has suggestions/requests for scenes or characters they'd like to see I'd be very happy to oblige! the more inspiration you give me the longer the next chapter will be haha
> 
> i hope this wasn't too out of character, because I know Ed is very against killing, but to me there were several times in the series that he would have killed people if al hadn't stopped him. in this au, al wasn't there to stop him.
> 
> comments would make me really happy!! thank you very much for reading!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i think I might’ve said this was the last chapter but im a liar who’s full of LIES so uh yh next chapter will ((probably)) be the last one
> 
> mmm this ones longer than the first two (10k when the previous were 5k each) which I’m a little wary about bc I don’t wanna bore anyone,, if you make it to the end then u deserve a gold star and maybe a nap
> 
> i took some creative liberty w some stuff, nothing big, bc apparently I just love the concept of ed having to go against his morals. sue me. also, some edwin, but it’s only minor so u can pretend it’s not there if u like
> 
> hope u enjoy!!

Al doesn’t remember much from when he was warm flesh and a beating heart. Sensations, even memories, slowly escape him over time. Until, in one of many nights spent alone, he is hit with the knowledge that his memories are no more than guesses. He can’t be sure that cold water gives skin the same prickling feeling he remembers. Does a fire in winter really warm the bones like pleasant syrup, or is that wishful thinking? There was something, however, that he feels certain he hasn’t made up. A feeling he can never forget.

Alphonse always loved sweet things.

Sugar was his favourite treat. When he and Ed went down to the market so Ed could buy practical, boring stuff like vegetables and weird books, Al would stop in front of the pastry and candy shops. He yanked on his brother’s shirt hem like a dog begging for attention. Ed huffed and reached for his hand – Al, reluctant to go back to that lonely house, avoided him. He’d slip off and into the crowd before Ed could even shout his name.

When Ed caught up, he'd find Al with his nose pressed to the local bakery's window, breath clouding the glass. His eyes – soft and round like their mother’s had been – widened in awe at the sight of delicately iced cookies and chocolate-coated pastries. The scents of honey and sugar were heavy and light all at once. He would plead, practically begging on his knees, for Ed to buy him something. Just a little treat. Only very rarely would Ed concede.

Ed wishes now that he had bought Al all the sweet things in the world while he still had the chance.

\---

They sit on the edge of a fountain in an empty market square of a nondescript town in the east of the country. To be more precise, it’s only Ed that sits on the fountain’s edge; Al’s metal frame is too large to fit. Instead, he leans against the side, knees tucked to his chest. Even with Ed sitting on a higher ledge, Al is still taller than his brother.

“This sucks. How is it that every single inn in this backwater town is full? I don't get it!” Ed huffs exaggeratedly, crossing his arms. Then, almost immediately deciding he doesn't like the position, he uncrosses them. He settles for tapping his metal fingers against the stone ledge. “It's dark now too. And cold. Surely there's gotta be someone who's not stingy enough to deny two kids a place to stay…”

If Al had eyes, he'd be rolling them.

“I don't think there are many people willing to let us stay the night out of the kindness of their hearts, Brother. I mean, I’m a suit of armour and you're, well… you.”

“What's that supposed to mean, huh?”

Al holds up his hands in mock surrender. “You're just not a people person! A lot of people can find you intimidating.”

Ed opens his mouth to argue, brows knitted with fury, but pauses, seemingly thinking about it. After a few seconds, he mutters a flippant _whatever_ and goes back to tapping the ledge. Al shakes his head.

It’s just their luck to be stuck here. They were on their way back to Eastern Command from yet another false lead when their train had to stop not an hour into the return journey. Luckily, there was a small town close by. Unluckily, there wouldn't be another train until morning. So now, after an hour of increasingly fruitless searching for a place to stay before dark, they were out in the cold, preparing for yet another night without a bed. Or even a roof. Not that it affected Al at all; it was Ed who was left complaining loudly.

Ed is silent for so long that Al thinks he might have actually fallen asleep. He does have a knack for dozing off in the most impossible places.

“’M hungry,” murmurs Ed, proving Al’s sleep theory incorrect.

“You're always hungry, Brother,” chides Al.

“Yeah, but something smells really good.”

Ed sniffs the air like a hound smelling its dinner, suddenly alert. Al resists the urge to laugh. It's not exactly what one pictures when they hear the phrase _dog of the military._

Eyes darting almost frantically, Ed analyses the empty town square in search of the source of the scent, and Al finds himself wondering just what it smells of – sugar, spices, salt? Is salt even a smell? He can’t remember, not really.

“There!” cries Ed with no small amount of joy. He springs to his legs, which only clank slightly with the movement, and he's halfway across the square before Al can scoop up the luggage and run after him, calling for Ed to slow down. Ed comes to an abrupt stop in front of a shop window.

“Jeez, Brother! Can't you at least give a little warning before you run off like that?” says Al. Ed doesn't even look at him. He gazes ahead, fixated on the shop.

When Al sees it too, all he can manage to say is, “Oh.”

The lights inside are yellowed hues of honey and amber. In the thick blackness of the night, the light spills into the street, gooey and warm. For a while, the brothers stand in companionable silence.

Finally, Al speaks. Softly, reverently. “It looks a lot like the bakery back home, huh, Brother?”

“Smells like it too, Al.” His melancholy smile is practically audible. “They shut the Resembool one down a while ago. I’m kinda surprised you remember it at all.”

“How could I forget it?” says Al, almost offended that Ed would even suggest such a thing. “We walked past it every day.”

“And every day you dragged me over to it so you could gawk at the iced biscuits.”

“You always said no when I asked for one.”

Ed splutters. “That's not true! I got you some stuff! Remember that Christmas when I bought that expensive gingerbread? I couldn’t afford dinner the next day because of that. We had to go to Granny’s. She said it was my own fault for giving in so easy.”

Al chuckles. “Yeah. I guess you did get me some stuff from there.” He studies the pastries on display and is surprised to find they even look the same as the ones from his childhood. When Ed’s gloved hand reaches out to touch the glass, ever so gentle like he fears the pane will shatter under his fingers, Al feels a pang in the heart he doesn't have.

“I should have gotten you more. I never should have said no.”

Somewhere, a dog barks. A drunken conversation between two men drifts on the wind. A church bell chimes.

Ed pulls his hand from the glass and stuffs it in his pocket. Al watches as he turns away from the bakery and ambles back to the fountain, red coat fluttering behind him like a handkerchief waving goodbye.

“Aren't you getting anything?” says Al when he catches up. “You were hungry just a second ago.”

Ed doesn't look at him, but his voice speaks his emotions well enough. “Nah. You always liked that stuff more than me. If anyone's gonna eat it, it should be you.”

Al’s leather fists clench.

“You don't know how long it’ll be until that can happen, Brother. It's already been four years. What's to say it won't be another four? Or more?”

Ed turns around. The look in his eyes reminds Al why Ed has always seemed so impossibly strong to him.

“It won't be another four years, Al.” Ed grins, wide and only a little bit sad. “‘Cause we don't know how long that bakery’ll be there, so we’ve gotta be as quick as possible in getting your body back if we wanna make sure you get to try their iced biscuits.”

Al knows, logically, that there is physically no way for him to have his breath taken away – but still.

But still.

When they reach the fountain, Ed sits heavily, this time leaning against the side rather than perching on the edge. Al follows suit. The honeyed lights from the bakery, though so far away now, seem to illuminate the blackness. A beacon in a stormy dark sea.

It's that faint yellow glow that allows Al to see Ed’s hand thread itself into his oversized one, a gesture that would otherwise have been lost on his unfeeling body. It's that yellow light that lets him see Ed’s lips move as he mouths one word. He's heard it so many times before — and yet he’s never quite believed until now.

_Soon._

\---

Ninety percent of Ed’s assignments are like this: unassuming, quick, and utterly boring.

They mostly follow the same pattern. Travel out to some town or city in fuck-knows-where. Carry out an inspection, check out any suspicious alchemical activity. Whatever. Sometimes there’s a little conflict. He shuts that down quickly enough. Report back. Endure having to exist in Mustang’s presence. Whatever, whatever, whatever. Ed lets Al tag along on those ones.

Then there’s the other ten percent.

These are the assignments slid across Mustang’s shiny mahogany desk with care, wrapped up all pretty-like in a creamy white envelope and a waxy red seal. So utterly deceptive. Ed reads over those quickly but carefully, feigning disinterest but not letting himself skip over a single neat, black word. After he’s done, he slides the papers back, not needing to read over them again, and saunters out the room like there isn’t a sickness curdling in his stomach.

He packs light most times; these assignments don’t take too long. Then he shoots a quick goodbye to Al, not daring to linger lest he be forced to meet those red imitations of eyes and the emotions they still, somehow, manage to portray. Ed tells Al to be good while his big brother is gone. Tells him to go the Hughes’ if he gets lonely. Al may only be ten, but it isn’t like he needs to eat or sleep, so taking care of himself is easy. Al whispers a hushed _be safe_ and Ed pretends not to hear everything else that hides in the long shadows of his brother’s voice.

The assignments can send him anywhere in the country – north, east, south, to desert towns or border cities, a village in the mountains or a slum in the dirt. It doesn’t really matter.

It always ends the same.

Ed doesn’t pretend he isn’t aware of what these missions are – he had, the first few times, not understood it. What a foolish, stupid twelve year old he was. It took a while, and a few implication-laden sentences from Mustang, to understand fully. 

The assignments in the pretty white envelopes, signed with the Führer’s signature, are tests. Tests to see if Ed is cut out to be what he sold the last scraps of his dignity to become. Tests to measure his endurance. To prove what he can do.

To be certain he can kill on command like the good dog he is.

The first time, he had tried to refuse. Snarled curses. Growled and yelled and let the fury swallow him up whole. The second time too. The third wasn’t much different. He wanted so badly to spit on that white paper, to rip it into one million pieces and watch them burn to ash.

But he couldn’t. That would mean giving up on Al. His little brother, his only family. The little boy who loves cats and summer sunsets and the way leaves fall in the autumn, waiting patiently for the day when he can feel them all again.

No, if killing people that the Führer wants to make disappear is what it takes to fix his mistakes, then Ed will gladly play the part of the obedient dog.

—

Night has draped over East City by the time Ed returns to the hotel.

He staggers as the door, a thin thing that wouldn’t hold up against a kick, shuts behind him. His left leg is stiff; he thinks there might be a bullet lodged in a joint, but he can’t be sure. Gasping ragged breaths, Ed presses his steel hand to his abdomen, wincing at the necessary pressure. The lights turn on. He groans and squints under the intrusive brightness.

“You’re late, Brother,” says Al. He’s standing in the bathroom doorway across the compact room, helmet brushing the frame.

Ed grunts and stumbled forwards. “Why’d you turn on the lights? Too bright. Off,” he slurs, voice muffled and distant to his even to his ears. He wonders, absently, if that’s how Al hears his own voice.

“You said you’d be back before dark.”

Perhaps it’s the way the world is spinning around him that stops Ed from hearing the dangerous note in his brother’s voice.

“S’rry, Al,” Ed mutters, barely paying attention, entirely fixated on getting to the bathroom and washing. He thinks there might be blood drying on his crotch. It’s not comfortable, to say the least.

Al does not move from the doorway.

Ed frowns. He tilts his head up, up, up to look at his brother. Al may not have a real face, but from the set of his shoulders and the balling of his fists, his emotions are almost painfully obvious.

“What happened?” Al says. He’s practically shaking now.

Ed shrugs. “Guy put up a fight.” He grins, hoping to reassure Al that’s he’s fine. “I took care of it though.”

“You mean you killed him.”

Ed’s heart stutters. He tries to form words, but they sputter out in his throat. That’s answer enough for Al.

It seems like Al gets like this every time Ed returns from these assignments. He ignores Ed and speaks with cold disdain. Sometimes, he leaves the room entirely, not afraid to let the door slam on the way out. Passive-aggressive expressions of his disapproval.

But for Al to say it out loud like that – _you killed him_ – that’s different.

 _Is it really?_ says the voice in the back of his head, the one that sounds like Truth, or God, or whoever the fuck it was he met that day in front of the Gate. _I don’t know about you, little alchemist, but it seems to me like you’re afraid to fess up to all those nasty things you do dressed up prettily as acts of ‘brotherly love’. What excuse is there for taking lives?_

The voice laughs, a crescendo of insanity. Ed squeezes shut his eyes, willing the laughter stop. It’s all in his head.

“Yeah,” Ed says, “I killed him.” He hardens his eyes, fixes Al with the expression that always used to mean _‘no, you can’t have extra dessert’_. “What of it? He wasn’t a good man. Orders are orders.”

There is a silence in which Al simply stands there, almost hilariously tall in the low doorway. Ed will not apologise. He will not. He will not apologise, not even if he wants nothing more than to fall to his knees and scream _I’m so sorry_ until his throat burns.

Finally, slowly, agonisingly, Al moves aside. Ed does not look at his face as he strides into the bathroom and shrugs off his coat. The lights in here are even brighter than the bedroom ones. It’s like the room is flickering. Ed isn’t sure if it’s from the lighting or the way his head aches, a consistent pounding that rattles his brain around his skull.

His reflection shocks him, just a little. Blood on his face, his clothes, red smudges of it in his gold hair. More than he had thought there was. Whether it’s his own or the blood of the man who he had killed not hours ago, he doesn’t know. A mixture of both, perhaps. The scar across his face that he got when he hadn’t been watching his back – god, a year ago now, it feels more like a lifetime – cuts over his nose and cheek. He’s been getting less scars like that with Al around. It’s a little embarrassing, really, that his little brother is a just as good, if not a better, fighter than Ed is.

He steps forward to turn on the shower, not caring that Al is still watching him. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before.

He makes it one, two, three steps before the ground rushes towards him and the world goes black.

—

Consciousness comes in flashes of white light and the smell of antiseptic and a trembling voice full of desperate fear. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe he’s dead and now he’s watching his short life unfold, starting from the night he tried to bring mom back.

He blacks out again.

When he wakes, Ed groans – at least, he tries to, but only manages a weak grunt. His flesh limb feels just as heavy as his steel ones. His mouth is dry and rough like desert earth. He doesn’t need to open his eyes to know he’s in a hospital bed; he’s much too familiar with the smell and the texture of the sheets, the way the clothes here chafe in all the worst places. If he had the strength, he’d wrinkle his nose.

After a minute, or maybe an hour – it’s hard to tell – Ed pries his eyes open. It feels like they’ve been stitched together with the amount of effort it takes. The room’s overhead lights are dimmed, but they’re still too bright. There’s a needle in his arm, which he looks away from quickly, feeling queasy at the sight.

His eyes find Al. His brother is sitting next to his bed, close as his huge frame will allow, metal head bent and staring at the floor. He could almost be sleeping. Ed indulges in that fantasy for a moment.

Finally, he swallows. Trying for a smile which probably looks more like a grimace, Ed croaks, “Did you get the plate of the bus that hit me?”

Al snaps to attention, standing up from his tiny wooden chair so fast that it scrapes backwards a few inches.

“Brother!”

Al moves as if to embrace Ed, but stops, hands fluttering nervously. Like Ed is a ceramic doll who might break at the slightest touch.

“Sit down, Al,” murmurs Ed, wincing at the dryness in his throat. Al sits. Ed watches him fidget. “What happened?”

“You collapsed right after you got back from your – your assignment.” Al grips his metal knees. “I took you to the hospital. Brother, you had a stab wound in your abdomen – you could have _died_. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Ed flinches, barely. He clenches his fists into the sheets, hard enough to be painful on his flesh hand. He doesn’t look at Al, afraid of what he’ll see if he does.

“It wasn’t important,” says Ed. “I’m fine, aren’t I?” _I’m fine._ That seems to be turning into his favourite lie.

“That’s not the point!” Al’s yelling, joints clanking as he trembles.

“I understand that you’re angry, but–”

“I’m not angry!”

It’s Ed who’s frustrated now. He growls, “Then what _are_ you?!”

“I’m _scared_ , Brother!”

Ed feels the words like blows to his chest. Al buries his head in his hands. He trembles violently.

“I was so scared. There was – there was so much blood. And it was – it was like I was six again, on that night, waking up like – like this. Carrying you out of there, unable to tell if you were still even breathing. I thought you were dead for a while.” Al’s breath hitches in that childish way that shouldn’t be possible without a body. But Al’s always found a way to defy the impossible.

Ed is at a loss. When Al was little, he was easy to comfort; a hug, a hair ruffle, peppered kisses on his forehead to get him giggling at the ticklish sensation. Now, Ed is only armed with words.

He’s never been good at words.

So he watches. Lets Al shake and tremble, lets him make those imitations of sobs for as long as he needs. When Al is only whimpering, Ed speaks.

“I’m sorry.”

Apologies, apologies, apologies. Always, all he can offer, apologies. Are they ever good enough?

“Why?” says Al. That throws Ed.

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because I keep upsetting you.” Ed turns his head away from Al as much as his sore neck will allow. The curtains are open; it’s dark outside. The view looks out over a carpet of bright blue city lights. Ed is familiar with it. “Because I kill people when I know you hate it. I know how much you hate me when I do it.”

“What? No, I – I don’t hate you. I hate the killing – but that’s not why… why I…” Al sounds so young. His voice hasn’t changed a day since he lost his body and yet, somehow, Ed forgets that his brother is so utterly young. Ten. He had to grow up so fast.

It shouldn’t be like this.

“It’s not that I’m ever angry at you.” Al stares at his hands and shuffles his left foot. Nervous tics Ed has long since memorised. “It’s just that – you’re killing people for me. You come back from these assignments and you have this look on your face, like you’ve just lost another part of yourself you can’t ever get back. And you’re doing it for me. I can’t stand it, Brother… I can’t…”

Ed understands now. Why Al can barely look at him, why he trembles – not with anger, but with guilt, hurt, sorrow – when Ed wanders back stained with blood that isn’t his own.

Somehow, understanding that is a hundred times worse than Al hating him.

Hate is so much easier.

“You know I can’t refuse the assignments. Not unless I want to lose my certification.” Ed’s throat still aches. The lights are still too bright.

“I know,” says Al. “Which is why I have a promise for you this time.” Al’s hand reaches onto the bed to cover Ed’s, engulfing it easily. The leather is cold. Ed lets it melt into his bones. “I promise I’m going to work even harder to get our bodies back. And when we get them back, you won’t have to do this for me anymore. I promise, Brother.”

A foolish promise, not easily kept; the declaration of an innocent child too full of hope.

But perhaps a little hope is what they need right now.

Ed lets his eyes slide shut again. He smiles, and he knows Al can see it from the way he squeezes his hand.

“Turn out the lights, will you?”

There’s clanking as Al gets up, and then darkness as the lights finally, finally turn off. Ed sighs contentedly.

“Good night, Brother,” says Al.

“G’night, Al.”

Ed dreams that night. Not of his mother’s reanimated corpse or Alphonse’s screams or a little girl and her dog merging into one. He dreams of his brother whole and warm in his arms.

It seems less like a memory of a lost time and more like a certainty of the future.

Yeah. Perhaps hope isn’t so bad after all.

—

The day after Ed’s hospital release, it rains so ferociously that seeing three metres in front of your own face is a challenge. Both brothers sit in their shared hotel room, Al pouring over an alchemical text, Ed sat with his head pressed to the window. He’s strangely quiet. The only noise is the drum of rain and the occasional turn of a page.

It’s Ed who breaks the silence, eventually.

“She died three years ago today.”

Al looks up from his book. He mentally searches for who his brother is talking about – mom? No, that was in summer, he’s heard, and much longer than three years ago. Someone Al never met, then. It isn’t fair, Al thinks, that Ed should have had to have gone through so much by himself. He often finds himself wishing that he was just a little older, so he could have accompanied his brother in those first few years. Been there for him when no one else was.

“Who?” Al says tentatively.

“Nina.”

Oh.

Al never met Shou Tucker and his daughter, the family Ed stayed with while he was studying for the State Alchemist exam, but he’s heard of them well enough. Ed used to talk about the little girl in his phone calls home. About how he thought they would’ve gotten on well.

And then Ed stopped mentioning her in his calls. Like she had never existed in the first place. Al, barely seven, didn’t even notice at the time.

He didn’t find out that Nina Tucker was dead – and with it, _how_ she died – until he began his travels with Ed, just a year ago.

_When I was twelve, I met a little girl whose father fused her with the family dog._

God.

In the street, the rain reaches raucous levels of noise. Al wants to say something – apologise, maybe, but he knows it will be empty. So he waits. Minutes pass.

“I can’t stay in here,” says Ed finally, eyes piercing into Al. The grief in them is sickeningly palpable. Al could almost imagine it’s his own. “I can’t. Please.” His voice breaks.

“Okay,” says Al.

They leave hurriedly, Al gently having to tell Ed to put his coat on when he forgets to. Al’s reminded of when he was little, on those rainy days when he insisted on going out and playing in the mud. Ed used to huff and roll his eyes, but he smiled fondly regardless. Al tried to run out into the downpour in only his pyjamas, causing Ed to pull him back, scolding him lightly and getting down on one knee to button up his yellow raincoat to the neck. Al remembers that it was itchy, but he doesn’t remember what _itchy_ feels like.

 _Not so fast, little man_ , Ed would say. _We don’t want you catching a cold._

As soon as they leave the hotel, Ed is running, Al’s hollow footsteps echoing not far behind. He doesn’t bother calling out. He knows by now that Ed is deaf to the world when he’s like this.

When Ed tires of running, he slows to a walk, Al finally falling into step beside him. He worries, faintly, that Ed will catch a cold, but at least the rain has let up to a more forgiving patter. They stop by a clock tower overlooking the city, Eastern Command visible on the skyline. Ed sits. Al follows.

“How are you feeling?” says Al. Ed stares blankly ahead, wet golden curls plastered to his neck and face. Al isn’t certain he heard him.

He’s about to ask again when he notices the man standing before them.

His hair is white. There’s a ghastly scar over his forehead in the shape of a cross.

“You are the Fullmetal Alchemist, correct?” says the man.

It happens so quickly that Al almost doesn’t reach Ed in time to pull him away as the man lunges forwards; the place where he was sitting moments before explodes into rubble, electricity crackling. The clock tower bellows a singular chime.

Ed snaps into action, any remnants of the lost-looking boy he had been moments before gone from his features. He shouts for Al to run.

They run.

The man chases them through twisted streets, Ed almost tripping over himself as he slides over the slick cobblestones, yelling about how he hasn’t done anything to make someone want to kill him. Al can, in fact, think of several instances where his brother has done things to make people threaten to kill him.

After minutes of being chased – Al is unaffected, but Ed is panting like a dog, gasping for air – they find themselves cornered in an alley. They prepare to fight, charging the scar-faced man on either side. In sync. As one.

Al doesn’t feel the man blow half his armour to shreds. But he sees it. He hears the wrenching of metal; the blue flash of transmutation energy; the resounding crash as he hits the ground hard, skidding on his front. He doesn’t need to look down to know the damage is extensive enough that he is unable to stand. It doesn’t hurt. Of course it doesn’t.

He bites back a sob anyway.

The scar-faced man rips through Ed’s arm like the steel and wiring is cotton and thread. Someone is screaming, begging, pleading. It takes a second for Al to realise it’s his own voice.

“No... no, no – please! Don’t hurt him! Brother! Run! Get up and _run!_ ”

Ed lies on his side in the middle of the street, body entirely limp. The man stands over him. Al hears his brother speak as though through muffled ears.

“Am I the only one you want to kill today? Or are you after my little brother too?”

“Only you will receive my judgement, Edward Elric, so long as your brother does not interfere.”

“I see.”

Al’s vision goes white. If Ed or the man are still speaking, he doesn’t hear it, because all he knows is static. He stretches his hand out. They’re so far away – Ed is so far away. It’s like a sickening imitation the night in basement, when he reached for Ed, screaming and wailing just as he is now. The last thing he remembers from before he stopped existing and woke up in a metal prison.

Except this time, it’s Ed who’s about to stop existing.

He wants to close his eyes. He doesn’t want to watch his brother’s brain spill onto the pavement. Doesn’t want to know what sound his flesh will make as it’s split open and red blood comes spraying out.

He just wants to close his eyes, but he can’t even do that.

A gunshot shatters the air.

Further down the street stands Colonel Mustang and a cadre of soldiers. Al has never known relief like he does in that moment.

The ensuing battle is a distant blur to Al, who’s entirely fixated on Ed, still lying in the street. A soldier – Havoc? – runs to him and helps him sit up, ready to pull him out of the way if necessary. Al can’t express his gratitude.

It takes an age for the fight to wrap up, ending with the scar-faced man escaping into the sewers. Ed runs to Al immediately, slightly off-kilter without an arm. Al wants to hold him close and never let go. He never wants to go through that again.

When Ed reaches him, Al punches his big brother’s stupid face hard enough to send him reeling.

“What the hell, Al?!” says Ed, clutching his face.

“How could you just give up like that, Brother?!” Al sounds petulant, he knows it, and not for the first time he curses the childlike voice he’s stuck with. “I told you to run! You should have run!”

“I couldn’t just leave you, Al! You’re all I have left–”

Al cuts him off with a laugh. “Oh, no, you don’t get to get away with that excuse again.” He’s gesturing wildly now. Lack of a working face has taught him to express his anger in much more obvious forms. “Have you ever thought about how you’re all _I_ have left? What do I do if you die, Brother? I know you’re obsessed with being the older brother and protecting me or whatever, but how can you even do that if you’re dead?!”

Ed stares. He looks like he’s been hit – which, Al remembers, he has. He feels a little guilty for that already.

That’s when his shoulder makes an awful splitting sound and, seconds later, his arm falls off. Al screams in frustration.

“See! Now my arm’s gone and fallen off because my big brother’s a big fat _idiot_!”

Ed smiles fondly, apologetically, painfully. He leans forwards to rest his flesh hand – the only one he has left – on Al’s chestplate.

“Sorry, Al,” says Ed. “You’re right. We really are falling apart, aren’t we?”

Al sob-laughs. “Yeah. Maybe a bit.”

Later, when Ed has been bandaged and Al’s open side covered with a white sheet, they sit in Colonel Mustang’s office. Al is inescapably aware of the way Mustang’s team steal glances at him. He shifts and fidgets as little as possible under the attention, which isn’t hard, because he’s missing half his body. He was never a fan of prying eyes, much preferring to hide behind his brother and let Ed do the talking.

Ed notices his discomfort. Of course he does.

“Hey,” says Ed, pushing himself onto the table to sit beside Al. He swings his legs in a back and forth motion over the edge.

“Hey,” says Al.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

Al meets his brother’s eyes. He’s so strong. He’s always been so brave and Al’s always been so horribly weak in comparison.

“You don’t have to lie to me, Brother.”

Ed’s eyes spark with that familiar flame. “I’m not lying,” he says.

And Al believes him.

—

“Oof. It's too cold to be out here this late, you idiot.”

Ed doesn't turn around. Winry huffs again.

“Are you even listening to me, Edward?”

This time, Ed turns around to stick his tongue out at her. If he’s lucky, it might be too dark for her to see the gesture, but judging by the way she growls an obscenity, she sees it all too well. He snickers.

Winry is right; it’s late at night, and maybe a little cold to be sitting on the roof in only his shorts and shirt. The frigid air pricks at his skin and the areas where his automail connects to his flesh are numb. His breath clouds in front of his face so densely it could almost be steam.

“You really should stop transmuting ladders on the side of the house every time you want to brood up here,” says Winry, slumping down next to him heavily, her legs – still longer than Ed’s, dammit – swinging over the edge of the roof. “Granny won't be pleased when she sees it.”

“Granny isn't pleased when she sees anything.” Ed stares off into the distance absently as he says it. The hills and mountains are great black shadows against the inky blue sky. There are so many stars in the countryside; in the city, the millions of pinpricks of white light are drowned by light pollution. Ed had almost forgotten this view.

“What're you doing up at this time?” asks Winry.

Ed shrugs. “Dunno. Why're you up? Thought you’re s’posed to be working non-stop on my arm.”

“Yeah, well, even master mechanics have gotta take bathroom breaks. I stopped by your room to say ’night to you and Al, but he said you went off somewhere. I thought you'd be in the kitchen hogging all the food, at first. Guess I should have known you'd be up here looking all thoughtful and dramatic.”

Ed snorts. Winry smiles. Ed gets a funny feeling in stomach, because in the moonlight her hair shines white like the flurry of stars above them. He looks away.

Winry prods his flesh arm – the only arm he has at the moment, since his steel one is currently on her table being repaired. Or rebuilt entirely, really. Thanks to Scar, it’s been reduced to scrap metal. “You two don't visit often enough. And you're only here because you busted your arm again!” She folds her arms and Ed makes a show of rolling his eyes. “How old is Al now, anyway?”

“You know how old he is, Winry,” says Ed, studying his palm, tracing the long scar across it with his eyes. He doesn't really remember how he got it, and he doesn't especially care to. Winry doesn’t speak. “He's ten.”

“Yeah,” says Winry, “I know.”

“I almost forgot his birthday. Can you believe that? I've been so caught up with getting our bodies back that I almost forgot his birthday.”

“Al would have understood.”

Ed barks a laugh and sobers up instantly after. “That's the worst part,” he says, not caring for how unhinged he sounds. “He really would be okay with it. He always was the better of us, y’know?”

“No, Ed.” Winry’s hand, rough and scattered with nicks and marks, slides into his, covering the scar on his palm. He missed that feeling. Missed the warmth of human contact. It satiates an ache he had long grown used to feeling.

Because Al is human, of course he is, but he hasn't been warm for a while now.

“I did a really shitty job at being a big brother, didn't I?”

Turning her head ever so slightly to look at Ed, Winry remembers the first time this conversation happened, during Ed’s automail surgery. She remembers witnessing his horrified self-blame and the disgust at the sin he’d paid for. Every time she sees Ed like this, she wants to reach out and put her hand on his his stupid cheek and tell him to his stupid face how damn stupid he’s being. Or maybe slap his stupid face instead.

Or kiss it.

“I mean,” gulps Ed, “I was supposed to be like his parent, wasn't I? I was all he had. And he – he was all I had too.” Ed pulls free of Winry’s grip and fists his hand in his already messy hair. “I’ve always hated Hohenheim, you know that, for leaving me and mom, but what if I'm just like him? ‘Cause I left Al. I left him when I started caring less about him, the only family I had left, and more about bringing back a dead woman. I left him when I ran off to become one of the military’s mutts. Literally left him – with you, and then with Teacher – and I tell myself that it was for a good cause, but what kind of shit excuse is that for abandoning my brother?”

Ed breathes hard and fast, looking for all the world like a wild animal shot in the leg. Winry sighs. The stars shine brighter.

“You're not your father,” she says, tired beyond comprehension but keeping her voice unwavering nonetheless. “And you didn't abandon Al. Know why?” Ed’s golden eyes search Winry’s blue ones. She shucks off her jacket, still smudged in dirt and stinking of oil, and places it around Ed’s shaking shoulders. He doesn't seem to notice.

“It's because I’m your family too,” she says, not breaking eye contact. She doesn't know if she can. “And that means I'm Al’s family as well, so when you left him with me and Granny to go and find a way to _save_ him, we were there for him. As his family. You're not alone, you hopeless idiot. Neither of you are.”

Ed stares at her; she stares back. He blinks. There is a silent conversation in those seconds, words passing unsaid but heard regardless.

The tension in Ed’s shoulders loosens like string unravelling. He looks sheepish suddenly.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, but he's smiling slightly now. Definitely an improvement. “And you really had to give me your jacket? Isn't that what the guy’s supposed to do for the girl?” Moments after, Ed blushes and splutters, and Winry can't help but go pink as well. ‘N-not that we’re, like, like that, or anything! I just meant that–”

“I know what you meant!” Winry practically yells. They both stare ahead in silence, refusing to acknowledge each other. The view really is pretty.

“It's kind of cold,” Ed mutters after a while. “Should we go in?”

Winry laces her hand in Ed’s again, feeling the scar tissue there scrape lightly against her skin. He starts, but doesn't pull away. She breathes in slowly, then out.

“Yeah,” she says. “In a minute.”

—

Regret is one of Ed’s least favourite emotions. It’s a horrible amalgamation of guilt and self-pity and unmodifiable disappointment. It’s a thing of _what-ifs_ and _maybes_ that could have happened if they were given the chance. Kinder futures and happy endings that were smothered by his own stupidity before they were even born.

Ed regrets a lot of things.

He regrets not giving Alphonse more – no, all – of his time while he was still just a child clinging to his big brother’s leg. He regrets that Al ever had to grow up at all. Those hazy days when he found everything funny, the days when he had nothing to fear – only fireworks and sleeping without the hall light on and rain that was too loud – should never have ended.

Ed never should have cut them short.

—

When they uncover the secret behind the making of a Philosopher’s Stone, Ed feels like a fool for even hoping. Hoping for what, exactly, he isn’t sure. Maybe there wasn’t a object of his hopes. It was just – hope.

God, he was such a fool.

They go to the Fifth Laboratory hunting for answers but they only uncover more questions. A raven haired woman with a voice like red wine dripping from redder lips; a man who takes Ed out with a knee to the stomach whilst smiling like it’s all a joke; the matching ouroboros tattoo they both bear. Too many pieces and too many questions.

Desperate, the brothers return to Dublith in the hopes that Teacher can help fit some of the pieces together. That ends up feeling hopeless too.

Ed has just about given up when he just so _happens_ to meet Greed the Avaricious.

Ed stands in the alley outside Teacher’s house, muttering curses about where the hell Al might've gotten to. Logically, he shouldn’t be worried about Al; what danger could a martial arts trained seven foot suit of armour get into that isn’t even more dangerous for the other party?

That doesn’t stop the panicked thoughts that start to flash through his mind. What if he wandered off chasing a cat and now he’s lost? Granted, Ed can’t really think of anything else but that. It seems the most likely option. Or the only one.

“I can tell you where your brother is if you just tell me what I need to know.”

Ed’s insides turn to ice. He whips around and sees a hunched, hooded man sequestered in the shadows of the alley. His nose is large and crooked and – scaly? There’s something swishing about his legs too. A tail. Lizard. _Chimera._ Ed narrows his eyes.

“Is that so?” he growls.

The hunched man doesn’t seem to hear the threat in Ed’s voice.

His mistake.

“Yes,” the man confirms, nodding. “I’ll tell you everything once–“

Ed strikes so fast that the man manages no more than a pathetic squeal before he hits the ground, Ed’s metal forearm pressing down on his windpipe with ruthless precision. A kind of calm settles over Ed, one he hasn’t felt this strongly since Shou Tucker.

A killing calm.

He snarls; it doesn’t sound human.

“Where.” It isn’t a question. The man makes desperate wheezes under Ed. “If you’ve hurt my brother then I swear to fucking _god_ that I will cut your neck open like a pig’s.”

The words are ugly. In any other circumstance, they would have no substance behind them. Ed kills only when ordered to, and even then he puts up a fight against the orders. Spilling blood with the intention to take life makes him sick to his stomach, makes his hands feel dirty and his mouth taste bitter. He lays awake at night for weeks afterwards. When he does sleep, he wakes up screaming and scrubbing at blood that isn’t there.

A price he’s willing to pay if this man has so much as touched his little brother.

The lizard-man’s fingers scrabble frantically at the arm at his neck, bloody as they scrape at steel. His mouth forms shapes, but no sound comes out. His eyes roll back in his head. The spasms in his legs slow.

 _Don’t kill him,_ says a voice in the back of head. This isn’t the one that sounds like Truth; it’s the childish voice of Alphonse. _Don’t kill him, Brother._

Ed loosens his grip. The man gasps great lungfuls of air.

“Where is he?” says Ed.

“A bar! It’s called – it’s called the Devil’s Nest!” The man stutters horrendously on almost every word. “It’s not far from here! I swear – I swear your brother’s not hurt! We only – master only –“

Ed has heard enough. He hits the man around the head and he goes limp, unconscious.

The Devil’s Nest.

It probably would have been best to keep the man conscious so he could take him to Al’s location, but if he had to listen to another minute of that man’s whimpering, Ed doesn’t think even the voice in his head could have stopped him from killing him.

It’s fine. Ed thinks he knows where the bar is regardless; he has a vague memory of seeing it a few times in the year he lived in Dublith as a child. He hoists the unconscious figure up by the collar and drags him as he walks, unbothered by how the man’s skin tears open on the rough ground.

He finds the bar in an even faster time than he expected – the lizard-man was right when he said it wasn’t far. Inside, it’s empty, music crackling on a banged up radio and two half-finished beers open on the counter. Ed breaks open the staff door and, surprise surprise, behind it is a stone staircase leading down.

Every step he takes is heavy. His metal legs clank with each movement. It becomes a rhythm that Ed doesn’t bother hiding.

Let them know he’s coming. It’s the last thing they’ll ever know if they’ve hurt Al.

The stairs level out into a corridor lit with dull yellow lights. Further down is a closed door. Voices converse behind it, none of which Ed recognises, until—

“If you think my brother will tell you anything about my soul, you’re mistaken.”

Al.

Something primal rears it’s head inside Ed. He should wait outside and listen in, see if he can find out anything useful, assess the situation and who he’s facing.

He kicks the door down so hard it hits the wall with a jarring bang. He throws the lizard-man before him like a rag doll, watching the unconscious body skid. His eyes hold as much warmth as icy water.

“Brother!” cries Alphonse.

Ed analyses his brother quickly. Thankfully, he’s still in one piece, not dismantled like he had worried. Al hates being dismantled. He’s bound, though. Ed allows himself an internal sigh of relief.

He had been so afraid.

There are three other people in room that Ed can see. They all look dangerous, but none so more than the man closest to Al, a black-haired figure with a wicked grin that could cut glass.

“Brother, this guy’s a homunculus!” Al says.

“Way to spoil the fun,” says the man next to Al. He grins lazily at Ed. “Name’s Greed, by the way.”

Ed’s eyes widen, then narrow again. He distantly recognises what Al has just told him – _a homunculus, no, that shouldn’t be possible, how is that possible, who would even create such a thing, why would anyone_ – but in that moment he can only focus on something much more important.

Al’s voice. To anyone else, it would sound strong and steady and not at all scared; Ed almost falls for it. But he knows — he knows that tremor thinly veiled behind a brave facade. He knows it from the nights so long ago when Al woke from nightmares and climbed into Ed’s bed for comfort. Knows it from all the times Al tripped and scraped his knees, the clumsy thing he was. Knows it from the day in the basement, when they stood before the perfect chalk circle. When Al asked him if he was sure it was a good idea and Ed told him not to be such a coward.

Maybe Al hasn’t been dismantled, or broken apart, or worse. But he’s scared. 

These people have made his little brother afraid.

The primal thing in Ed snaps like string pulled too taught.

“Let him go.” Ed’s voice is distant, muffled, like he’s floating in a lake of oil. It doesn’t sound like his own.

The homunculus – Greed – raises his black brows. “Oh-ho! So you’re one of _those_ types. You don’t care what people do to you, but as soon as someone hurts a loved one you completely lose it.”

Ed claps his hands, lets the transmutation run wild through his veins and prickle at his flesh. His right arm melds into a wicked blade.

“Let him go.” His teeth ache from the force with which he grinds them.

“Let me tell you something, kid.” Greed’s hands become black like obsidian, nails suddenly claws. He twists his mouth in something akin to disgust. “I _hate_ types like you.”

Ed growls. He doesn't have time for petty insults.

These people have hurt Al.

These people are going to pay.

“You lot get out of here,” says Greed, jerking his head slightly at his accomplices. “I can take this brat.”

The largest man hefts Al over his shoulder. They move toward the door at the back of the room.

It takes Ed all of one second to transmute a pointed blade and hurl it into the leg of the man carrying Al. He grunts and falls to one knee, dropping Al. His brother clangs against the floor and from within Ed hears a woman’s voice cry out.

Okay. He’s up against five, then.

“Don’t think any of you are getting away,” Ed growls.

Greed whistles. “Feisty one, aren’tcha?”

Ed screams, an unholy mixture of rage and hatred and bloodlust, and he charges.

The first thing he notices when his blade clashes with Greed’s arms is that they are harder than rock, tougher than steel, and stronger than diamond. Ed’s automail screeches with each collision. Sparks fly.

Their fight is a dance, each movement to an unheard rhythm. Greed is fast despite his larger size, dodging and landing blows alike. In the corner of his eye, Ed notices Greed’s lackeys leaving with Al, the large man still carrying him despite his leg wound.

Ed makes a noise that can only be described as a howl. Greed goes for him, and Ed lets him. When he’s close enough, Ed swerves to the side. Greed’s eyes widen a fraction before Ed’s metal foot collides with his face, sending him sprawling across the room. His face is bloody, teeth missing, nose crooked. Red transmutation energy sparks. Ed watches with both a child’s horror and and a scientist’s fascination as flesh begins to knit itself back together.

The largest man has already escaped with Al – _dammit, fuck, dammit_ – but two of the guys still remain, a short black haired man and the lizard dude, who apparently regained consciousness during the fight. Greed is still recovering on the floor.

Ed shoots the two men hovering by the door a glare. A challenge.

_Come at me. I dare you._

Their eyes move from where Greed is slowly rising to where Ed stands, blood at his feet. They square their shoulders.

When they charge, Ed lets every bit of rage – _they hurt his little brother, made him scared, he’s so brave all the time but they made him afraid and they did that it’s their fault they’re going to pay_ – escape him. He moves like an animal.

The fight doesn’t last long.

Ed recieves a few blows – a slice to his shoulder, a kick to the back of his knee. He lands far more than he takes. The lizard-man clearly isn’t a fighter; he shakes where he stands, movements sloppy. Ed barely allows himself to pity as he takes him out – he doesn’t kill him, as much as he wants to. The other, stockier man is better, skilled with a katana, but little match for Ed. He tears through him like a hound into prey.

They took Al and made him afraid.

Ed doesn’t hear Greed until he’s behind him. He whips round moments before Greed brings his clawed hand down, raising his automail to block the blow, pieces of his metal appendage shattering. Greed’s other hand comes in from the side and Ed can’t jump back fast enough to avoid black nails scraping across his chest.

They continue like that for a while, Ed heaving breaths as he sustains wound after wound. Greed heals rapidly. His shield spreads from his hands to his entire body, twisting his face into a grotesquely fanged maw.

“You’re a real piece of work, kid,” pants Greed. He had seemed amused before, but now there there only annoyance in his tone.

Ed screams again. It stopped sounding human a while ago.

Al. This man took Al.

When he works out that changing the composition of Greed’s shield makes it no stronger than brittle sugar, Ed delights in a wicked grin. Each of his attacks tears through flesh like a hot knife through butter. Blood and sinewy muscle clogs his steel joints.

 _Stop it!_ cries the fake Alphonse voice in Ed’s head. _You don’t know how many times he can regenerate! Stop it, Brother!_

Ed is too far gone.

“Edward!”

Ed stops. Turns. Teacher stands in the entrance to the room. Her eyes narrow. Flit over the scene. Ed stands drenched in blood – his own and the homunculus’ – panting and murderous. Greed, across the room, doesn’t look much different.

She fixes her gaze on Ed. “You didn’t put the broom away, idiot pupil.” Ed shrinks back. She spits. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Ed swallows. “This man – he took Al, Teacher. I had to fight him –“

“You call this a fight?” Teacher looks enraged. “You’re not fighting, you’re losing yourself to some kind of fucked-up excuse for bloodlust! You _disgust_ me!”

Ed’s mouth forms shapes, but words fail him.

Greed snorts. “Look at that. You really are a kid, getting scolded by a woman like–”

Teacher kicks Greed in the face so hard he slams into the opposite wall like a rag doll. The stone cracks with the impact.

“Say that again, you pathetic–“ Teacher’s words are cut off by the familiar sight of blood falling her lips. Ed rushes to her side. Greed slips away, escaping through the door, but Ed doesn’t dare leave Teacher to pursue him.

He’s supporting Teacher by the waist when soldiers appear in the doorway. Apparently, the Führer and Major Armstrong are here too. Ed doesn’t need to look at Teacher to know she finds that just as suspicious as he does.

They’re made to wait out the fighting. Ed can’t stand it. He knows Al his here, but he can’t go to him. He could be in danger. He could be fighting. Either way, Ed can’t shake the feeling he must be scared. When shit like this goes down, Ed keeps Al close to his side always, protecting him, guarding him with his life.

Al is alone. There’s nothing Ed can do, and it’s killing him.

Finally, finally, finally, he’s allowed to look for Al. He and Major Armstrong find him in the sewers beneath the building. He isn’t conscious. That’s never happened before.

 _He’s just unconscious_ , he repeats to himself, over and over and over as they drag the metal carcass up into the bar. _He’s just unconscious. He’s just unconscious._

Blood, great rivers of it, pour from Al’s joints; they open his chest cavity to find the body of a woman, one one Greed’s people. They drag her out. Soldiers appear to cover the sallow corpse with a pristine white sheet. Ed looks away.

_He’s just unconscious._

Al wakes up suddenly and with a sharp cry. Ed wants to sob with relief, wants to fall to his knees and chant how sorry he is and how much his heart aches with it.

He just kneels before Al and puts on one of those smiles that his smart, brave little brother can always see through.

When Al notices the blood that stains him, he shakes violently and sobs as best he can. He can only choke out small sentences. How he couldn’t save her, over and over. He sounds broken. Ed grips his little brother’s large hand with his own smaller ones, holding the leather to his chest in the way that always meant _I’m here and you’re okay._ He mutters soft reassurances that are entirely empty.

Ed realises, then, that it’s not these people who have made Al afraid. It isn’t them who have hurt his little brother beyond repair.

There is only one person to blame.

He did this to his brother. Him alone.

Ed can’t hold back the _I’m sorrys_ that finally spill over his lips like a faucet left running. They bubble over. He chokes on them gladly.

—

Alphonse has never had parents. He has had people to look after him, love him like parents would – Ed, Winry, Granny, Teacher. It’s not that he wishes for parents, either. Wishing for what was long gone is what caused Ed to do commit the sins he now lives with. No, Alphonse does not desire a mother nor a father, for his brother is more than enough.

Desire and curiosity are two very different things.

When he was much younger, Al’s curiosity was almost a consuming thing. He saw the children in the playground sitting atop their fathers’ shoulders and clinging to their mothers’ hands and he felt a longing that he didn’t quite understand at the time. The strength of a mother, the warmth of a father: what must it feel like to know that?

Al isn’t sure when he stopped caring about having parents. Before or after the human transmutation? Sometime after, probably. Maybe it was the transmutation itself which caused him to stop dreaming of the embrace of a dead woman he never met.

Lieutenant Colonel Hughes is the kind of father Al spent his childhood longing for.

Doting, smiling, so full of love for his family. Upon Al’s first visit to Central, Hughes insisted he and Ed stay with him a night. To his credit, he only blanched for a few seconds when he saw that Al – a nine year old at the time – ‘wore’ a full suit of armour. Then he blinked, shook his head like it didn’t matter, and descended into a five minute breakdown over his daughter.

They took up Hughes’ offer to stay the night. It was an unfamiliar experience to Al, sitting at that table with a happy family he didn’t know. Elicia was sweet and bubbly in the way most small children are; Al wondered if he was like that when he was her age. According to Ed, Gracia’s cooking was delicious. It looked it.

Later, Ed wandered off to their bedroom, leaving Al playing with Elicia in the living room. She was nice to spend time with, but Al has always found animals much easier company than children. He has never possessed the same affinity for kids that Ed does. He supposes it must have stemmed from looking after Al all his life.

“Are you okay, Alphonse?”

Al remembers looking up and seeing the Lieutenant Colonel standing there. He was smiling gently, but the genuine concern in his voice was audible. Al fidgeted.

“I’m sorry, Mister Hughes. I’m not sure what you mean,” he said.

Hughes laughed – Al can hear it so vividly, even now, that laugh. “No need to be so formal!” He shook his head. “I just meant that you looked a little uncomfortable during dinner. Is everything fine?”

“O-oh! Yeah, I’m fine.” Al looked down at Elicia. Her eyes were drooping shut. “I’ve just never really been in – um, how do I put it? In an environment like this, I guess. Ah, no, that sounds stupid…”

“Not at all,” said Hughes. Al won’t ever forget how completely wise and kind he sounded. “I think I know what you mean. It’s mostly just been you and your brother your whole life, yeah?”

Al nodded. He fiddled with the cloth tied around his waist.

“Well,” said Hughes, his large hand – Al still imagines it might have been warm, maybe calloused from all those army years, but gentle despite it all – resting on Al’s shoulder, “if there’s ever anything you boys need, then don’t hesitate to ask. Helpful and insightful advice is a great speciality of mine.” He grinned wide.

Except Ed, no one really touches Al, not anymore. Even Ed seems a little wary to, or perhaps his small size – barely as tall as Al’s hip – makes it difficult to show much affection other than bumps against his chest plate. Either way, physical contact is an alien thing to Al.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel Hughes,” said Al. He wasn’t sure, then, if he had ever meant any words more.

Al remembers leaving the living room soon after. Ed was already lying in bed, watching car headlights flit across the dark ceiling. Al took his place sitting next to the other bed, a wooden-framed thing made up with fresh sheets especially for him.

“Mister Hughes is a really nice man, isn’t he, Brother?” said Al. Ed looked over. Thinking about it now, Al gets the feeling Ed knew exactly what was going through his mind.

Ed turned his eyes up, back to the lights cast onto the ceiling. Maybe he smiled and maybe he didn’t; Al doesn’t quite remember that part.

“Yeah,” said Ed. “He is.”

Since then, it’s like Hughes takes every opportunity to be perplexingly kind to Ed and Al both. He bought Al a wooden bookmark carved with cats for his birthday, once. He drags them to his home when they have nowhere else to go. He visits Ed in hospital. He’s everything Al imagined a father to be.

It’s not that Al sees Hughes as a father, or anything of the sort. Of course not.

It’s just nice to pretend.

***

When they return to Central, Brigadier General Maes Hughes is dead.

He was murdered close to midnight, age twenty-nine, on the twenty-ninth of September 1914. His body was found shortly after, in the phone booth where he was impaled in several places and then subsequently shot to death.

The blood that dripped through the corridors and into the street and soaked the phone booth is scrubbed and gone already. His office belongs to another man. His grave is smooth grey stone, birth and death date carved neatly under his name.

If it weren’t for the people he left behind, it would almost be like he never existed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for readin. tune in next time for bad parenting, actual plot, and these kids being angsty. yknow, the usual
> 
> at the risk of sounding annoying and far too dependant on validation, please drop me a comment it would make my entire LIFE complete oh my god


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here she is... the last chapter...... honestly if you’ve stuck with this story till the end im thoroughly impressed bc no offence to me but im a shit writer
> 
> yikes, wow this ones also abt 10k. I really hope you enjoy it!
> 
> here’s the playlist I made for this fic bc im Extra: https://open.spotify.com/user/llucieeee/playlist/1W16jZhq9bwfamEg31K47s?si=Rc6CcPgw
> 
> listen while reading if u wanna!
> 
> again, warnings for some graphic violence and gore

The room is low lit but not dark. Early morning light weaves its way through the thin gap between closed curtains, casting a stripe of blue light across the bed sheets. A bird chirrups outside. In the open fields, a breeze runs its fingers through the trees; tall, ambling, spindle-thin stick figures. The late Autumn cold is crisp like freshly cut apples.

The air is thick with antiseptic and blood and oppressive despair.

In the bed lies the boy. His gold eyes are glassy like a doll’s, his skin pale like porcelain, his mouth an unwavering line carved into his face. His one arm rests at his side, twitching on occasion. He has no other limbs, only stumps. These are swaddled in bandages, and through them seeps red splotches the colour of poppies that bloom in the June fields.

He breathes in, then out. In, out. In, out. Sometimes, he holds his breath for longer, testing the length he can last without air. Impossible as it is, a part of him hopes he will hold it for too long. Hopes he will breathe in one last time and then never again.

The door cracks open, the click of the handle deafening in the silent space. A girl walks in, her pretty blonde hair swaying where it’s pulled back at the back of her head. Her bright blue eyes are ringed with dark circles and red splotches. The boy doesn’t spare her a glance. She bites her lip.

“Edward,” she says. Her voice cracks, thick from crying. “I need to change your bandages, okay?”

She waits patiently for a response, but only receives stony silence. Her hands, small but practised, carry out the task with the clinicalness of a weathered nurse. Edward’s wounds are neat, precise, as if someone took a sharpened butcher’s knife to his limbs and sliced them like raw pork, clean through flesh and muscle and bone. They’re much less gruesome than many other injuries that Winry has witnessed in her eleven years.

It’s an effort not to run from the room and heave up her breakfast.

When she is done, she helps Ed sit up more, placing another pillow under him. She checks his temperature and rubs warmth into his hand. He doesn’t meet her eyes. She doesn’t bother trying to.

“Alphonse,” he says. All that screaming has made his throat raw. “How’s Al?”

It’s one of the only things he’s spoken for two days, since – since that night. Speaking is a battle. His mouth feels numb, his tongue useless in his mouth. He’s pumped full of drugs but it still hurts.

Winry purses her lips. Smooths the blanket, looks away, opens the curtains a fraction and gazes into the fog settling atop the rolling hills.

“He’s still confused. But he’s better now, better than he was yesterday. I think he’s starting to understand.” Maybe if she says it enough times, it’ll become true.

“I need to see him again.”

“Ed–“

“Let me talk to him.”

Winry can’t bear to look at Ed. He’s so small in that patient’s bed. The white sheets pool around his stumps, outlining them glaringly. It’s impossible to imagine he’s still whole, like that.

“He’s not in a great place right now,” she says. The fog shifts, dense and milky white. Ed enjoys this kind of weather, says it’s ‘interesting to observe’. Winry can’t stand it; it’s like being trapped on all sides. “He’s… distressed. Seeing you like this – I don’t know…”

“He’s seen it all already. Seen worse than me wrapped up like this.”

Oh, the guilt in those few words – Winry’s nails cut little crescents into her palms. She turns around to meet Ed’s eyes.

“Please,” he says. “He needs me. I… I need him.”

Desperation, fear, anguish: that’s what Winry sees in Ed’s face.

“Alright,” she says, already familiar with the warning press behind her eyes that means tears can’t be kept back any longer. “I’ll send him in.”

Ed breathes out shakily. “Thank you.”

It’s so wrong, to hear Ed be so polite, so meek. Please, thank you. It’s not Ed. It’s a shadow of him, an echo. A boy cut open and hollowed out.

Ed watches her leave. The door closes, and he is alone with the heavy silence. He waits. Breathes. In, out. In, out. The door opens.

The figure that enters is seven foot tall, easily. It hits its head on the doorframe, but doesn’t cry out in pain, only whimpers in surprise. Its body is silver metal; its hands are clumsy leather; its eyes are red-white lights in black sockets. Each step resounds with jarring clanks.

Alphonse comes to stand by the bed. Ed stretches his neck almost painfully to look up at him. Ed’s little brother was no taller than his elbow not three days ago. Small enough for Ed to carry, to sweep up off his feet and hold to his chest.

“Hey, Al.” Ed smiles. His chapped lips split with the effort. “You can sit, you know.”

Al nods dutifully and goes for the chair by the bed. Ed realises, suddenly, that Al won’t be able to fit in the chair.

“Uh, maybe – maybe you should sit on the floor.” He smiles again. It’s a weak thing that takes far too much effort.

“Oh,” says Al. After a moment of deliberation, he sits. His movements are awkward and jerky and he spends a while working out where to put his legs, finally settling on crossing them. Ed watches his brother with building sickness pressing impatiently at the back of his throat.

“How are you?” says Ed. He hasn’t spoken properly with Al yet. Only small words and false reassurances. He’s been too high on medication, pain lacing his bones still, to do more.

“What’s happening, brother?” The child’s voice – six, six years old, god – is tinny, laced with more confusion than fear. Fear will come later, Ed’s sure.

“Winry and Granny explained a little, yeah?” says Ed.

“They said you were really hurt.”

Ed doesn’t like it when Al sounds like that, because it means he’s about to cry, which leaves Ed desperately trying to prevent the inevitable. It’s such a nuisance.

Alphonse doesn’t cry. Edward tries not to.

“Yeah, I got hurt a bit, but you carried me here and I got help. I’m okay now.” Another one of those weak smiles.

“Oh.” Al prods at his legs. He finds a smudge of blood there. He fixates on scrubbing at it with the same attention he gives to drying dishes and carving pictures into the dirt outside the house.

Ed tenses.

“Al,” he says, knowing to get his brother’s attention before speaking. Al looks up from his task. “There’s a drawing, um, inside your armour, okay? It’s red and circular. You mustn’t touch it, okay? Don’t rub at it. It’s got to stay perfect.”

“Inside my armour?”

Ed’s hand fists into the sheets. His bones might shatter with the force with which he trembles.

“Yes, your armour.” Every word is sluggish. Heavy on his tongue. “That’s – that’s your body for now. Not for long, I promise. Okay? Look at me, Al. I promise.”

The first of many promises just like it.

Al looks at his big brother. It’s impossible to know what’s going through Al’s mind.

“Is that why I can’t feel anything?” Al says. Inquisitive. Some fear, maybe, if Ed’s reading his voice right. He feels sure Winry must have explained this already, but Al always has had trouble comprehending difficult things, needing Ed to sit him down and talk through it several times. The time he found a dead bird by the road. When he saw a girl in his class fall and break her leg. Little things that seem so big to a child.

Yeah, little things.

Al’s face is impassive, but his shoulders are hunched. He fidgets restlessly. 

“Does that mean I can’t eat? Or sleep?”

“Yeah,” Ed manages to choke out. “Not until we get you back to normal.”

He keeps saying that, keeps thinking it. He doesn’t even know where he’d start. Before, he’d been so sure he could regain what was lost – mom, he was supposed to see mom again, _this isn’t what he wanted_ – but that cockiness cost him half his body and his little brother’s life.

 _You brought him back, though,_ Winry had said when he told her about those few minutes when Alphonse was dead. Killed by Ed’s hands. Ed had wanted to scream at her. Doesn’t she get it? How can he make her understand that it doesn’t matter that he brought Al back to life?

That isn’t the point.

There’s a light knock at the door, and seconds later Winry’s pale face appears from around it. She looks between the brothers. Something must show in Ed’s eyes, because she swallows and says, “Al, let’s let your brother rest, okay? C’mon, you can help me feed Den.”

Alphonse gets up. Ed flinches at the scraping of metal joints. He ambles to the door, legs wobbling and unpractised. Clank, clank, clank. He turns before leaving, eyes meeting Ed’s.

“Um. I hope you feel better soon, brother.”

Ed gives him one last cracked smile. “Don’t worry, little man. I will.”

When Al’s hollow footsteps have faded down the hall, Winry looks to Ed.

“How is he, then?” It sounds like an accusation.

“I think he understands. He’ll be okay.” It sounds like a lie.

Winry just stands there, ghostly, an apparition. The whites of her eyes are red. The cuffs of her shirt are red too. His blood, Ed supposes.

He stares at his hand, his only limb, and says, “It’s my fault.”

Winry doesn’t say anything to that. There’s something in her eyes, though, that agrees wholeheartedly with him.

Edward waits until after the door has closed behind her before he presses his face into the pillow and chokes on sobs.

—

Some might call Edward’s relationship with his absent father ‘complicated’. Troubled. Broken, if they’re being straightforward. Ed knows they’re all wrong. Truthfully, it’s not complicated at all; rather, it’s simple to the point of being boring.

Edward hates Hohenheim. Nothing more, nothing less. No complications to it.

None at all.

His only memories of the man with gold hair and impassive eyes are mostly fleeting, lingering at the back of his mind – he was a stoic man, speaking rarely and ignoring his son regularly. That much Ed knows.

Other memories are more vivid. Clear like colour photographs snapped in his mind. The evening when Hohenheim had smiled and held Ed’s mother close, the two of them dancing around the living room to unheard music, a fire crackling in the hearth and laughter on their lips. He remembers the morning of the following Sunday, when he woke to his mother shaking at the table, tears streaking her pale cheeks. How she swallowed and lifted Ed onto her knee and told him that his father wouldn’t be gone for long.

That was the first time she told that lie. She told it every day until she died.

The worst part is that Ed knows she believed it.

—

Underfoot, the grass is wet from the bursts of rain that have been plaguing Resembool for the past week. A stark contrast to the dry desert Ed has just returned from – he’s still digesting that. Maria Ross, alive. The Xerxes ruins. Ishvalans.

Now, though, the sky is almost cloudless, a hue of burnt orange that comes with darkening evenings. Dew still lingers. Ed doesn’t doubt that more rain is threatening its arrival. A lot of it too; there’s that pressure in the air that causes his ears to pop and his stumps to ache painfully, missing their long lost appendages. He should return to the house before the bruise-coloured clouds inevitably roll in.

When he sees the graveyard, his throat closes up. It doesn’t appear much different from the last time he was here. More graves, of course, some decorated with pretty bundles of flowers like vivid paint strokes out of place in a sodden landscape. He clutches his own bouquet tighter. Den trots obediently at his heels, seemingly aware of Ed’s somber mood.

How many childhood days were spent here? Too many. After mom died, it felt like he lived by her grave. Granny was always telling him to bring Al along with him those first few years. Let him get to know the mother he never met as best he could. Ed couldn’t stand that. Al — that baby, that thing, his brother — was the reason mom was dead. What right did he have to _know_ her?

He got over those thoughts, in time. Ed still wants to strangle his past self for ever thinking them.

Oh well. Can’t change the past.

He’s so lost in bittersweet memories that he doesn’t see the figure before her grave until he reaches it.

Ed stops dead in his tracks. His muscles tense. He knows that it’s his mother’s grave the man stands facing, of course he fucking does, so why's a stranger there? There’s no one who cares but him, not anymore, maybe not ever.

The man is tall, easily six foot, sturdy, broad shoulders. Long brown trench coat that flutters in the raucous wind, and golden hair to match.

_No._

Ice shoots through Ed’s veins. His mouth is flooded with bitterness and he chews his cheek hard enough to taste coppery blood like the first bite of unripe fruit.

_No, it can’t be, how could it be, no, no, no—_

The man turns, and Ed’s world crumbles.

Van Hohenheim looks just as he did a decade ago, just as he does on that photo pinned to the board in the kitchen. It’s like he hasn’t aged a day.

It isn’t fair, Ed thinks, that he himself should have aged so prematurely, become the twisted thing he is today, rotten through with pain and guilt and blood, while this man gets to fuck off elsewhere and come back unchanged.

It isn’t fair.

“Hello, Edward.”

That voice. That’s the same too: disinterested, detached, a bored creator watching over a story he knows the ending to. Ed stumbles back. The flowers slip from his metal fingers and scatter in the dirt, crushed by his grip.

“No,” says Ed. It comes out broken.

“I’m sorry it’s been so long.” Empty, empty, empty. How does this man expect Ed to believe a word from his mouth?

A powerful gust of wind rips through the air, and at Ed’s feet the dead blossoms scatter like embers escaping a hearth. Ed stumbles, almost falls.

“You,” Ed spits. Maybe it will get the bitter taste out his mouth.

Hohenheim smiles ever so slightly. The sun’s last rays catch on his glasses, hiding his cold, cold eyes.

How fucking patronising.

“Pinako told me what happened,” says Hohenheim, carrying on like Ed hasn’t spoken, like he doesn’t even exist. “Tell me, where is my house?”

“We burnt it to the ground!” he screams. Ed’s blood boils red hot. He will not feel guilt. This man doesn’t get to come here and call that place his house when he wasn’t even there to watch it go cold.

The wind settles, then rises again. Hohenheim’s faint smile slips away. _Good,_ thinks Ed.

“And why would you do such a thing?” He doesn’t sound angry. He doesn’t sound much of anything, a blank slate wiped clean.

“As a symbol of our resolve,” says Ed. He wipes blood from the corner of his mouth where it had seeped out from his bitten cheek. “As long as that house is gone, we have no choice but to keep—”

“No you didn’t.”

Ed stutters.

“What?” he says. The wind is stronger now, howling in Ed’s ears. He doesn’t hear it.

“You’re lying to me and yourself.”

Hohenheim strides towards him, towering and powerful and everything Ed hates. He steps back, then stops himself. He will not be afraid. He will not run. He will not give this man that much.

Hohenheim stops not a meter away from Ed. Close enough to reach out and touch.

“You did it because you’re ashamed. You wanted to cover your tracks. You didn’t want to face the sin you’d paid for.”

Each accusation is delivered like a blow to Ed’s chest. The wind roars, wild and furious and mocking.

“You’re like a child hiding the sheets after wetting the bed.”

Ed wants to scream with the wind then. He wants to fall to his knees at his mother’s grave and howl until breath leaves him.

It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that Hohenheim should get to walk back into Ed’s life and act like he’s known him all this time.

It isn’t fair that he should see through Ed’s fragile lies so easily.

“You don’t know anything about it. We — we didn’t…” The words, weak, pathetic things, are stolen by the wind. Hohenheim frowns, the first real expression Ed has ever seen on him.

“We?” Hohenheim’s confusion is palpable. It doesn't suit him. “You keep saying that. ‘We’, rather than ‘I’. Why?”

And suddenly, Ed understands.

The bastard doesn’t know about Alphonse.

Whatever it was that Granny told Hohenheim, it wasn’t enough, because she neglected to mention that Trisha Elric had a second son not a year after her husband’s abrupt departure. Which also means he doesn’t know the rest of it. He doesn’t know the half of Ed’s sins.

His face must show his horror because Hohenheim looks — scared? No, not scared. (He looks worried, but that can’t be, _there’s no way that can be._ )

“What is it, Edward?” says Hohenheim, and if Ed didn’t know better he’d say he sounded frantic. “What aren’t you telling me?”

The last of the crushed flowers are scattered to the air.

Ed turns on his heels and runs, the sound of the wind and his father’s voice chasing him all the way home.

—

The door slams behind him, flimsy wood rattling in its frame. He trips on the threshold and catches himself of the table edge. Granny appears across the room.

“Ed? What’s wrong?”

Ed brushes past her in a few quick strides. When he reaches the board covered in childhood photos, he stops to breathe lungfuls of air, hands trembling.

“You didn’t tell him,” he says, desperate eyes meeting Granny’s impassive ones. “Why didn’t you tell him about Al?”

Granny purses her lips. “It’s not my truth to tell.” Ed must look perplexed because she sighs, and says, “I’m a bystander in this, I’m afraid. You need to take that responsibility into your own hands.”

Ed snorts and shakes his head. He turns to the board, breath coming more even now, head clearing of its overwhelmed haze. There are photos of him and Winry as small kids, some with her parents and some with his mother. Later ones, with a little baby Al in Winry’s arms, Ed looking bored at her side. One from the winter of 1908, when it snowed as deep as three year old Alphonse was tall. He sits atop Ed’s shoulders in the grainy image, one of Ed’s old scarfs swallowing him up. He looks happy, smiling. As children should be.

Ed makes a decision then. A terrible one, he knows, but what’s one more of those?

One more sin.

Hohenheim can’t know what he’s done.

He lifts the board from the wall with little struggle. It’s large, though, and he curses his small size as he attempts to heft it beneath his arm.

“What are you doing, you idiot boy?” cries Granny.

“He can’t know about Al. Not yet.”

“Well, that’s the most stupid thing you’ve ever said, which is not something to be taken lightly.” She scoffs, then sobers. Softer, she says, “He’ll find out soon enough.”

Ed growls. “Not if I have anything to say about it. If he finds out about Alphonse, he’ll try to find him. Al doesn’t need that confusion right now. Maybe when this is all over, but now — no.” Maybe if Ed says it out loud, he can convince himself it’s the only reason.

Granny fixes him with a stare, searching in exactly the terrifying way that only Winry can replicate. Ed fixes her with his own determined glare, the one he learned from Teacher. Wind wails outside.

Eventually, she sighs and sits heavily at the table, tapping her pipe against the ash tray.

“You’re just as stubborn as him, you know,” she mutters.

“Who?”

Granny shakes her head minutely, enough to be missed by anyone else. “Never mind.”

She turns toward the window and Ed follows. It’s almost dark now, the last strokes of orange in the sky swallowed up by inky blue. A tall figure makes its way toward the house, a brown speck on that long dirt road. Gold hair whips about his head.

“You better hide those photos before he gets here.”

Ed frowns. “You’re not going to tell him about Al?”

“Like I said, it’s not my truth to tell.” Her old hands, wrinkled but still steady after all these years, tinker with wiring left out on the table. The sour-sweet smell of apple — and cinnamon, maybe? — wafts from the kitchen. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

Ed nods his thanks. He drags the board into the guest bedroom, setting it face down. He sighs.

God, he has no idea what he’s doing.

—

The next morning, Ed wakes early. It rained during the night, just as he predicted. It’s cleared now, but the sky is still bruised purple-blue-grey. The heavens threaten to open up again soon. He watches them from the bedroom window.

Granny calls him down to bid farewell to Hohenheim. He ignores her; it’s not as if she actually expects him to show up, anyway. Alone in that darkened room, he watches the bastard’s retreating back through a gap in the curtains. The guilt crawling through his guts makes him want to cut himself open and pull those traitorous feelings out himself.

Hohenheim turns, just for a moment. His eyes find Ed’s. He feels like a child caught up after bedtime.

Just one more sin, he tells himself. He doesn’t need to know yet.

Yeah, that’s a good one.

—

Ed returns to Central to find his brother in pieces.

Alphonse’s armour is half scrap metal, chunks missing, great claw mark-like gashes gouged into his arm. Panic floods him. Al does his best to explain – he went to the third laboratory with Mustang and Hawkeye and Havoc, apparently, and there they found the Homunculus woman. Alphonse informs him that Mustang killed her — burnt her to death in a merciless show of raw power — in a trembling voice.

That voice — Al keeps insisting he’s fine, Mustang and Havoc were the ones who were hurt, he says, but that’s the voice he uses when he’s shaken. Scared.

Ed patches Al up. Knocks him on the back, tells him that he was brave, that he’s proud. Al groans about being coddled; he says he’s not a little kid anymore, but in that playful way that means he likes the affection.

Afterwards, Ed leaves for the hospital with fury simmering in his veins.

He scares the hospital receptionist half to death when he demands to know Mustang’s room number. The white halls are almost empty at this hour, fluorescent lights dimmed. Each of his footsteps echo.

Edward storms into the room, a hurricane of animosity. Mustang half lies and half sits in the bed, adorned in blue scrubs and red-white bandages. He jumps, looking animal in his defensiveness, then relaxes when he sees Ed.

“Fullmetal–”

“What the fuck were you thinking, bringing Alphonse along with you on your little adventure into a military laboratory?”

Mustang blinks once, twice, three times. He doesn’t even look guilty. Ed should wring the bastard’s neck.

“I don’t see what the problem is here,” he says, black eyes roaming over Ed and then, seemingly bored, moving to watch the view of the city. “You’ve let him fight in plenty of equally dangerous situations, haven’t you?”

It would be so easy to attack him right now. He’s defenceless, injured, bedridden. Ed could strike in seconds and watch the life drain from the Hero of Ishval’s eyes.

“That’s different! I’m always there to protect him, make sure he doesn’t get reckless. You just — dragged him along, when you knew there was danger. He could have fucking _died_ —”

“Is it really so different?” Mustang fixes him with a gaze that, for the first time in a while, reminds Ed that this man has killed thousands in flames, and is entirely capable of doing it again. “Can you tell me with absolute certainty that you really protect your brother? All those places you go, the fights your start. He could die at any second. I know it. You know it. Stop lying to yourself, Fullmetal.”

There’s so much anger coursing through Ed that his skin feels hot and itchy and split open with a thousand knives. He’s so angry.

Angry that Mustang’s right.

“Fuck you,” he spits. It’s all he can manage.

Mustang watches him for another few seconds, calm like still water. He turns away again. Ed pants through his rage. Silence drips between them for a long while.

“Why do you hate killing so much?” Mustang says. The question is so abrupt that Ed momentarily abandons his anger.

“Do I need a reason?” He narrows his eyes at Mustang, distrusting.

Mustang shrugs, then flinches and clutches his stomach, where the bandages seem most concentrated. He recovers quickly, and says, “You know what you signed up for when you became a dog of the military. You’ve killed before, many times. And yet you still try to refuse orders and find ways around disposing of the enemy for good.”

Ed shifts from foot to foot. Taps his left boot against the tiles to hear the familiar metallic clank of his joints.

“I haven’t been… a child, not for a long time now. I’m not innocent. But by refraining from killing–” he swallows, words sticky in his mouth, “I guess it helps me pretend I have some innocence left.”

He isn’t sure why he just said that. Confessed one of his best-kept secrets, the greatest shame of many like it weighing on his neck, to a man he despises.

Mustang says nothing. There’s a flicker of something, some unidentifiable emotion in his dead eyes, but it’s gone within moments of appearing.

Ed turns and walks out the door. This was such a bad idea. He’s full of those, apparently.

“Edward.”

Ed stops in his tracks. Turns slightly, just enough to see Mustang in the corner of his eye.

“What is it now?” says Ed.

There’s that emotion again, the unidentifiable one, on Mustang’s face.

“You’re still an innocent.” There is no derision or mockery, only belief that he speaks honest truth.

“Whatever,” says Ed. It comes out cracked.

Ed stalks into the night without a backwards glance. His unspoken _thank you_ lingers at his heels.

—

By the end of the month, Ed feels as if he’s aged ten years. Something about wandering aimlessly in the bottomless pit of a homunculus’ stomach will do that to a person. If he thinks on it long enough, he can almost feel the warm blood, how it sloshed around his legs and dried on every inch of skin. The crunch of bones and squelch of organs underfoot accompanies him as he sleeps.

Having Ling with him in there helped, he thinks. As annoying as the prince of Xing is, someone who won’t shut up can be exactly what you need to keep overwhelming despair at bay. Ling’s a homunculus now too – that man, the one who looked like Hohenheim, made him into a new Greed. However the fuck that’s supposed to work. Ed supposes that’s his fault as well.

It’s a blessing that Al didn’t recognise Hohenheim-but-not-Hohenheim. They’ve never met in person — shit, Hohenheim still doesn’t know Al exists, that’s going to be a fucking mess — but Al’s seen the photo. The one with mom and Hohenheim either side of five year old Edward. Mom’s smiling in it, the upwards curve of her lips soft like melted butter. Ed’s smiling too. It’s too grainy to really make out Hohenheim’s face, but it’s easy to tell his expression is far from a smile.

Ed isn’t sure how he ends up on First Lieutenant Hawkeye’s doorstep. He remembers thinking that he should return her gun, a little sorry it’s so blood encrusted, and suddenly he’s knocking on her door with metal knuckles. It’s jarring.

Maybe he’s finally lost it. About time. He’s honestly surprised he’s lasted this long.

Hawkeye answers after knock number three, pretty features weary and brown eyes bloodshot. Despite this, she’s alert, hand hovering at the small of her back, where Ed knows for a fact she keeps a gun. Defensive, like she expects to open the door and see death waiting on the other side.

Soon, she realises it’s only Ed and ushers him in a little too hurriedly. He returns her gun. She goes to make him tea, but looks so utterly drained that Ed tells her not to bother. She smiles thankfully.

“Something a little stronger, maybe?” she says, tone light but entirely serious. Ed raises his brows.

“Promoting underage drinking, Lieutenant?” he says.

“You’ve been drunk plenty of times since you were twelve, Edward.”

Ed stutters and goes a stupid shade of red. “How’d you know?”

“I know hangovers when I see them,” she says, settling herself down in the chair opposite him. She pulls her cardigan tighter around her and shivers like there are fingers caressing her skin. It isn’t cold in the apartment. “Besides, I think you’d have to be awfully strong to get by all these years without getting drunk on occasion.”

It’s not like Ed drinks that often. In fact, he doesn’t even like the taste at all; it’s just the effects he makes use of. Only when something awful happens does he drink, which—

Okay, maybe he does get drunk fairly often.

“So?” says the Lieutenant, and Ed looks up to find her holding out a glass to him. Its contents, amber like melted candy, slosh around at the bottom. He shrugs and thanks her as he accepts it.

“What’s on your mind?” she says. How she does that, know when something’s wrong with anyone, Ed will never know.

“Alphonse,” he settles on saying, because the rest of his problems are too much for an evening chat. They’re his burdens alone.

“What of him?”

“He’s growing up.”

“Is that a bad thing?” She’s dismantled the blood covered gun and works on cleaning it with rapt attention. She looks a little like Winry working on Ed's arm.

“He’s growing up too fast. _I’m_ making him grow up too fast.”

The Lieutenant doesn’t look up from her work when she says, “I don’t think that’s true at all.”

“How?” says Ed, uncertain.

“Both of you boys have seen much more than children should ever see. But that’s just how it is, isn’t it? I don’t think there’s a fault to it. Pointing fingers — it doesn’t help. Never has, not in the history of this country. _Especially_ not in the history of this country.” Only the minute clanking of metal as she works fill the silent space.

“Yeah,” breathes Ed, “I guess so.” He watches her for another minute, letting the words sink into his bones. Tries to memorise them, so he can use them to drown out the screams he hears at night.

“The Ishvalan Civil War,” he says eventually. That catches her attention. She looks up, and in her eyes Ed sees a different woman, in a different place, a place long turned to ash but forever branded into her mind.

“What of it?” she says, eyes still glazed.

“I’d like to know about it, if that’s alright with you.”

For a moment, Ed thinks she will refuse. But she just sets down her mostly reassembled gun with hands that could almost be shivering from the cold, if Ed was stupid enough to believe that. Like by touching it she’ll be that different woman all over again. She pours herself a drink.

“Okay,” she says, “But you might want to finish your own drink first.”

Ed nods and tips back his glass. The alcohol burns his throat. He grimaces.

She talks. Ed listens.

When he returns home later that night smelling faintly of alcohol his brother can’t smell, he holds Alphonse tight and counts every last one of his blessings.

—

Alphonse has spent weeks, months, _years_ away from his brother more times than he can count. All those days spent waiting patiently for Ed’s phone calls and visits stay with him like old friends. He wasn’t lonely, not completely. But Ed had always been a constant in his life up until then, a protector, there to comfort him when he needed it most. When Ed was away, he felt like half of the child he was before.

There’s something different about being separated from his brother with no knowledge of where he is. Whether he’s safe. If he’s even alive.

Weeks have passed since he last saw Edward at Fort Briggs. All he knows is that his brother went missing after a mine shaft collapsed, and now he’s a wanted fugitive. Al thinks, if Ed is in fact still alive, that his brother is probably pretty pleased with his status as a criminal. He probably thinks it makes him cooler.

Al doesn’t let himself think about what it means if his brother isn’t alive.

They capture Envy and part with Mei Chang. She carries the Homunculus’ true form, a pathetic green thing no bigger than Al’s thumb, in a glass jar. Al can’t help but feel selfishly sorry to have to say goodbye to her; she’s become a friend like no other he’s ever had. Twelve years old to his eleven, Mei is just as much a child as he. It was nice to have a friend his age. He misses her already.

Soon after, their party arrives in Liore. Winry chatters to him non-stop, but her words are background noise as Al struggles against the guilt that overcomes him.

The Liore riots. If he and brother had never interfered — how many would still be alive?

It doesn’t do well to dwell on things you can’t change, Ed says. Ed’s not very good at following his own advice.

That’s when Al sees him: a large blond man with matching gold eyes, working and smiling with townsfolk. It’s painfully obvious he’s not one of them. In what way, Alphonse isn’t sure.

All Al knows is that he looks exactly like the man the Homunculi call Father.

Al tenses, squaring his stance, ready to tell everyone to leave before it’s too late. It’s then he hears the name the townsfolk call the man by.

Hohenheim.

Van Hohenheim.

Everything clicks into place like a key into its lock.

The man not ten metres away from him is his father. God, he’s been so stupid — how didn’t he recognise him earlier? For a while when he was young, a day didn’t go by that he didn’t stare into that photo, the grainy one with Ed and Mom and Dad. That mystical figure he dreamed would one day return and make everything good.

Al wants to approach him, but fear of the unknown holds him back. There’s so much he wants to do right now but he just can’t. Can't take another step. It rages up a storm inside him.

So the day passes, his father working and talking and existing, and Al watches on from behind a glass pane. Night swoops in very suddenly and without warning. Even then, Al can’t bring himself to approach the man who meant so much to him once upon a time.

“Go talk to him.”

Al jumps. Winry smiles apologetically from beside him. Al’s used to it; in this body, this huge lumbering prison of five endless years, he’s too tall and too broad-shouldered to see anyone shorter come up from behind.

He can’t wait to know what it’s like to be a child again — it feels near, raw, the possibility of recovering his body. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“He’s your dad, isn’t he?” says Winry. “I thought I recognised him, and you’ve been staring at him like a pining dog all day, so now I’m sure.”

Al nods his assent. “Yeah, but…”

Winry faces him and reaches up to tilt his head down. She rests one pale hand on his dented arm — there’s dirt clogged in his joints, he’s such a mess, falling apart at the seams — and says, “ _Go talk to him_.”

Al shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. He doesn’t know this man. There’s no saying how he’d react, even if Al has been watching him all day, even if he’s exactly how Al dreamed. He should just sit and watch and wait.

But he’s tired of waiting.

“Okay,” he says, and walks into the night.

—

The next time Ed meets Hohenheim, it’s in a slum outside Central. He punches him and barely feels guilty about it. That’s a good sign.

Hohenheim is strangely solemn. Where before he had been keen to talk to Edward, to fix something far too broken in far too many places, he now keeps his speech short. Clipped. He tells Ed about the Promised Day — and that’s a whole other mess, fucking hell, shit just keeps getting worse when logically it shouldn’t be able to — without looking into his eyes. Whatever. Ed doesn’t have time for the bastard’s guilt tripping crap.

Al shows up on the slum’s outskirts. Ed feels immense relief which quickly turns to building horror as Pride’s shadows engulf his armour. They fight, and the entire time Ed has to keep convincing himself his brother isn’t dead. He sounds desperate even to his own ears.

And then Hohenheim turns up to the fight. Ed can only stand and watch, entirely helpless, as Al attacks Pride from behind — reckless, stupid, of course that won’t work, Ed’s about to watch his little brother die all over again and there’s nothing he can do—

Hohenheim doesn’t even move, doesn’t even blink, as he transmutes a prison for Pride, a great earth dome with walls at least a meter thick. He may be a right asshole but, fuck, Ed’s glad he’s on their side.

The only problem is that Al is still inside. Entirely alone with Pride, the oldest and most ruthless homunculus.

Ed loses his shit.

He turns on Hohenheim with flames burning under his skin. He unleashes animal fury like nothing he’s ever felt, screaming and shouting because _how dare he_. How dare he trap Alphonse in there. He might as well have sentenced him to death.

“It was Alphonse’s idea, Edward,” says Hohenheim. How is he so calm, so level, always? It’s fucking infuriating.

“His idea?” Ed grinds out.

“Yes. He wanted to be the distraction. I’m certain he can keep Pride trapped.”

Ed’s about to spit another scathing accusation when a realisation shoots through him at the speed of a bullet. It hurts just as much.

Hohenheim knows about Al.

If Al and Hohenheim have already spoken then Al has definitely, definitely told him the truth. That terrible truth that Ed so selfishly tried to hide.

Fuck.

“You know, then,” says Ed. It’s a fight to keep his voice steady.

“Know what?” says Hohenheim in that same cold, cold voice. Playing stupid. Pretending to be innocent. How did mom ever love that voice when it holds nothing at all?

“You know what!” yells Ed, because he’s so fucking tired of this game they’re playing. He’s tired of acting the part of the dog, chasing his tail in circles and never getting anywhere with this man. Always walking away feeling like _he’s_ the one who gave up on his family.

Ed takes a breath and shouts, howls, “He’s your _son_ and he’s eleven and you trapped him in there like that means nothing at all!”

Silence. And then—

“What?”

It’s in that moment that Ed sees for the first time what horror looks like on his father’s face. A weight drops in his stomach. He doesn’t dare speak, because if he does then his heart will fall out his mouth.

“What do you mean he’s my son?” The shock in Hohenheim’s voice drives a knife into Ed. It’s like he’s at the bottom of that collapsed mine all over again and there’s a steel beam as tall as him impaled in his stomach. Skewered like an animal. Trapped.

“I — I thought Al would’ve told you.” Ed’s voice is drowned out by the roaring in his ears.

Suddenly Hohenheim is right before him, pulling him up by the lapels until he balances on his toes alone. He doesn’t fight it.

“Edward, what do you mean he’s my son?”

“After you left,” says Ed, words jumbling together in both his mind and his mouth, “Mom found out she was pregnant. She died giving birth to him. To Alphonse.” It’s been so long since it happened, but the words still cause an ache in every part of him.

Hohenheim shakes so badly that Ed actually finds himself worried. Fucking hell.

“Al didn’t tell you?” Ed says.

“We met — we met in Liore. He said he was just a childhood friend of yours. He didn’t tell me any more than that.” Fuck, he’s shaking bad. He looks like he might drop dead any second.

“Oh.” Pathetic. Ed sounds so pathetic.

Hohenheim’s large hands unclench from Ed’s shirt and Ed almost drops to his knees. Whether from the sudden loss of support or from the ehxaustion that weighs on his nape, he doesn’t know. Hohenheim looks about the same as him.

“Alphonse,” says Hohenheim, softly, like he’s testing the way it sounds on his tongue, like it’ll break if he says it too harsh. He smiles brokenly. It’s a sad thing to witness. “I told her that was my favourite name, if we were to have another boy. I didn’t realise — I didn’t think she’d remember.”

Ed hates his father. There have never been any complications to it. It’s the one and only certainty he has left.

Then again, that’s exactly what he convinced himself when he was twelve and he went into that basement sure he had nothing left to lose.

Hohenheim turns and stumbles towards the woods, face obscured by shadows. Even so, Ed still doesn’t miss the tears staining his cheeks or the way he mutters Alphonse’s name like a prayer.

—

The walls of the earth prison are thick, but Ed can just about hear Al through them. He sits leaning against the outside, knees pressed to his chest. The metal digs in uncomfortably. At the edge of the woods, he can see Ling — Greed? — and the rest of the group converse. Hohenheim still hasn’t returned from the woods. Ed finds himself wishing he would.

He isn’t supposed to want that.

“Why didn’t you tell him you’re my brother, Al? His son?” says Ed.

“Why didn’t you tell him yourself?” Al’s voice is faint. Not for the first time that night, Ed thinks about how fucking brave his little brother is, to be willingly trapped in there with Pride. Ed hopes that soon he’ll never need to be that brave ever again.

“I guess I was too scared to say,” says Ed.

“Then there’s your answer,” says Al.

“Smart ass.”

Al laughs. Ed pouts and fights a smile even though Al can’t see it.

“I didn’t even know how I’d tell him, or whether he’d even believe me. But I don’t think dad’s all that bad, brother,” says Al. “You always talked about him like he kills kittens for fun.” Leave it up to Al to act like harm of cats like is the worst crime in the world.

Ed scowls. “He left.”

“To save the country. To save you and mom.” _Like you left to get my body back_ lingers after Al’s words.

“Fat lot of good that did her.”

“He couldn’t have known what would happen.”

A silence. It’s not uncomfortable; their silences never are.

“Brother?”

“Yeah, Al?”

“I think he really loved her. Mom.”

At the edge of the clearing, Ed sees Hohenheim emerge. The expression he wears, the one that has always seemed so coldly impassive, suddenly looks just like the one Ed sees in his own reflection. A lie to cover something wretched beneath — guilt, shame, anguish. Worse. He swallows around the unspeakable emotions in his throat.

“Yeah,” says Ed, “He loved her.”

—

Alphonse knows, but has never completely understood, why Ed gave up his arm to pull his soul back from the gate. For all Ed knew, Truth could take his life in exchange for Al’s soul. Ed was prepared to die for him that night and he didn’t even think twice.

Al understands now. Ed is stuck, unable to escape or do anything more than scream and struggle, and Father is going to kill him. Hohenheim can’t help them now. Ed is about to die and finally, finally Al understands.

In this moment, his life doesn’t matter. Ed’s does. He will give up anything to stop it from being taken.

—

He tried, at first, to form attachments. New people, new places; everyone who ever loved him was dead, so he might as well make a new start, right? And it was nice. Good. Never the same as what he once had — nothing could replace that, and he didn’t try to find something that would — but good nonetheless.

And then they died, these new people, not in the same way the people from his old life had (abruptly and in pain and far too young) but slowly. Peacefully, even. They faded from his life like stars winking out of the sky until he understood that he wasn’t meant to have people who loved him. They died, they always did, and he would be alone again.

So he stopped trying to love. It was better that way, and it stayed so for four hundred years.

Then he met her, and the simple act of not loving became torture.

She was nineteen when they kissed. Her skin smelled of smoke and her lips of honey and she smiled like an angel he didn’t deserve. Her hair, brown like the chestnuts that crowned the trees in autumn, fell in curtains over one slender shoulder. Her wide eyes of the same brown made him wonder why he’d ever wished he were dead.

By the end of the year, she was round with their first child. Soon, she gave birth to a healthy son. He cried and cried, loud and abrasive, right as he was born.

“That’s how you know he’s a fighter,” she said, pressing a kiss to the baby’s head and then one to her lover’s lips.

She called him Edward, because it meant wealth, she said, and Edward’s hair and eyes were golden like riches.

Children were an endless mystery to him. So innocent and so defenceless. They had nothing to regret. And one day they would just grow up and be like the rest of the world — scarred and distrusting and full of pain. He told this to her one night, while Edward slept in the next room over in the little white house on the hill he built just for her.

She blinked, and laughed, and said, “Children don’t grow up just like that, silly. They learn with the world. The world isn’t all pain — it’s life, it’s growing, it’s the way music sounds when you dance with someone you love. Edward will have all of that and more. He’ll have you and me to love him. He’ll grow up when he’s ready to. That’s enough, isn’t it?”

He thought about that for days, and when he was done thinking, he went to her and told her that, yes, it was more than enough. She smiled so wide. They danced, and the music never sounded sweeter.

Edward grew. She did too. He did not.

He had to leave when Edward was five, and it almost killed him. Edward was a child of endless curiosity, just as much the fighter she said he would be. At least, he thought, Edward would have a mother to love him. He hoped he could return before long, before it was too late.

“I’ll make sure he understands,” she said as he packed his bag. “He won’t harbour any hate for you as long as I’m around to guide him. You don’t need to worry about that.”

He kissed her. She tasted of honey still, but now there was apple too; she had taken to picking them from the tree he planted outside the house. They fell into bed one last time, wiping tears from each other’s cheeks.

He thought about her and his golden-haired son, his riches, his Edward, every day for ten years. The thought of returning to them kept him from falling back into the despair he’d shrouded himself in for centuries. One day, when Father was stopped and they could be safe, he would return to them. Edward would be fifteen. Almost grown up, but not quite. Still an innocent, because he would have her.

The day he returns, he sees the ashes of the house he built for her and the world shatters around him. He runs down the hill, fear gripping his heart and making him choke on every gasping breath. When he learns that she is dead and his Edward is long gone, he goes to her grave, a cold slab of stone in cold earth, and he sobs to gods he doesn’t believe in until his throat is too raw to scream any longer. He has no tears left.

His Edward grew up. He looks it — he looks just as his father did when he was that age, only more scarred. Broken and held together with metal and screws and desperation. It’s easy to see Edward hates him. He welcomes it gladly.

It can’t get worse than this, he thinks.

He is, as usual, wrong.

He has another child and never even knew. Another golden-haired and golden-eyed boy with his mother’s warm kindness. Only he isn’t golden, isn’t warm — he’s all cold, cold metal and empty eye sockets and a broken voice. Maybe that child’s voice held more innocence once, not too long ago. He likes to think it did.

He has never had a favourite name, not really, but Trisha once asked him what he would call a boy if he were to have one. He was lost for an answer, until a soul within him, a woman who hadn’t had a body in four hundred years, suggested Alphonse. It was the name she planned to give the son she was pregnant with when she died.

 _It means noble,_ she said.

 _Like a knight_ , said another, younger soul.

His noble Alphonse and his prosperous Edward. He wishes he could have known them.

—

The armour is split in several places, steel cracked open almost grotesquely, limbs severed. It has never been emptier.

Hohenheim watches his eldest son. Edward crouches by what was once his brother’s body, now a hollowed shell. He looks his age, properly and truly, for the first time. Sixteen and full of desperation. The crowd of Briggs soldiers and people, all these people who’ve come to care for his sons when he couldn’t, watch on solemnly.

“Use me to bring Alphonse back,” says Hohenheim. He doesn’t even need to think about his decision. Edward looks at him with something like shock, but he continues, “I’m a Philosopher's Stone. Besides, if I hadn’t left, you may never have been driven to the lengths you were. As you boys’ father, I am at fault just as much as you. So please, Edward, use me.”

The shock on Edward’s face turns from horror to incredulousness and then to fury. There’s a flicker of want, but it’s so smothered quickly it could almost have never existed. He growls, gold eyes fiery.

“No. No, you don’t get to do that.”

“I don’t understand,” says Hohenheim. It’s the truth.

“You don’t get to say you’re our father. You weren’t even there, you don’t even know Al, you can’t—”

“That’s not what matt—”

“No, no, fucking shut up and listen to me. You don’t get it, do you? Every day, every day when he was a kid he stared at that one photo we had of you. Like it was our saviour. Like it was gonna make things good again.”

Oh.

Ed carries on, arms gesturing wildly, “We were so lonely, the both of us. And Al kept saying that everything will be fine again ‘when dad comes home’. He didn’t even know you! He didn’t know you and he thought you actually cared. And it made me so _angry_ because I was trying, okay? I was trying, but I wasn’t enough.”

Ed pauses, panting. He looks feral. Tears gather in his eyes but don’t spill.

“And I shouted at him once,” he says. “I told him you were never coming home. But he didn’t stop believing, even then.”

“Edward…” Hohenheim says. His boys were so strong. Forced to be strong by a cruel world — is there anything worse than that, when a child is forced to grow up too fast? They deserved better than what he gave them: a cold white house and a longing for something more than each other.

“I’m not done, asshole,” says Ed, and Hohenheim almost has to laugh because that’s just so very _Ed_ that it’s funny. “What I’m saying is — maybe it’s too late for you to be my father. But not for Al. He still has faith in you, so — so you can’t die. I can’t kill you, because how’re you supposed to be a shitty father to either of us if you’re dead?”

He shouts the last bit, a rising crescendo of anguish. Tears spill in thick rivers down his bloody cheeks. He scrubs at them with his hands, now both flesh rather than metal. He looks younger than sixteen. He looks like the boy he should have been.

Hohenheim nods. Smiles gently because he doesn’t have the effort for anything more.

“Sorry,” he says.

“You better fuckin’ be,” mutters Edward. Close by, Mustang snorts and the crowd represses smiles.

Hohenheim watches his eldest son, his Edward, open the gate. He waits for a few painful minutes where he feels like he’s about to lose everything all over again. Then he watches as Edward emerges clinging to another gold-haired boy whose eyes have the same rounded softness as Trisha’s. They smile, the both of them, warm and golden like honey.

In all his four hundred and fifty one years, Hohenheim has never been as proud as he is now.

—

The best thing about having a body is that it’s impossible to choose the best thing.

It’s so difficult to choose, in fact, that Al makes a list. This is different from his list of things to eat — that was a tragic thing masquerading as hope. His new list is a celebration. It’s a reminder of everything he loves about existing: warm sunlight on warmer skin; dense smoke during the autumn festivals; the hints of cinnamon in Winry’s apple pie; the way his brother’s chest rises and falls as he sleeps, Al pressed to his side. Those are the best things.

Then there are the tricky things.

Sometimes, he’s washing his hands before dinner when he looks down and the water from the tap is blood, too warm and too sticky, dark red like crushed berries staining his hands. Sometimes, his heartbeat is too loud in his ears and suddenly he’s inescapably aware of his insides sitting heavily in his chest. When he closes his eyes at night he sees corpses, some belonging to the nameless people he’s watched die. Some wear the faces of those he loves — Winry, throat split open like a smile; Mei, skewered on Pride’s wicked shadows; brother, limbs gone and lying face down in a growing sea of his own blood.

That last one is a memory he can’t seem to forget.

Six months after he gets his body back, Alphonse dreams of his father. Hohenheim is long dead now, passed peacefully before Trisha’s grave, but Al still dwells on the short time he had with him while he was still hospitalised. That itself was like a dream. A pleasant one he had stopped daring to believe would come true.

This dream is one of his worst so far.

It begins in under the apple tree by the white house on the hill. He’s six again, still all flesh and blood and knobbly knees. He sits on the rope swing and his father is pushing it, back and forth, back and forth. Laughter bubbles from both their lips.

Then Al turns to smile at his father, or maybe ask a question. The details are elusive. When he turns, his father wears white robes the colour of skin pallid in death. He speaks, and his voice belongs to Father.

“You really are a naïve boy, aren’t you, thinking this will last?”

The rope snaps. Al falls and the ground doesn’t catch him. Still he falls, flailing and screaming but no sound coming out, wind whipping past him. Suddenly he’s submerged in an ocean of something hot and wet, coppery liquid filling his mouth and nose and lungs. His hands scrabble as if in slow motion for something, anything, to grasp on to. They find purchase. He hauls himself up onto a stone ledge, and when he looks around the liquid is blood and he is in the basement.

He stands. Takes a step and trips. He throws his hands out to catch himself and they meet with something soft and warm like sticky toffee pudding. He glances down to find his hands buried in twelve year old Ed’s rib cage, a gooey summer fruit split open, legs and arm removed, stumps bleeding sluggishly, eyes rolling back in his head, mouth making shapes and horrific, wet gurgling noises—

“ _Alphonse! Al! C’mon, Al, wake up! Please, fuck, wake up_ —“

Al’s eyes snap open. Ed hovers over him, shaking his shoulders and looking stricken.

Too close, too near, he’s too close it’s too warm _he can feel everything he can feel the blood and he can smell it too, it’s too much_ —

He screams and pushes himself back, arms still pathetically thin and weak from years of disuse. He can’t stop screaming and everything hurts so much but he has to get away, as far as possible. Ed moves as if to follow him. Al flinches violently and his brother shrinks back like he’s been struck.

Al has to get away.

On shaking legs, he flings himself from the bed and out the door. Through the Rockbell house he scrambles, knocking into things and bruising his sensitive skin. He’s so fragile. He finds himself missing the invulnerable body that was his prison until so recently.

He escapes into the night. A storm rages, the kind with thunder and lashing rain that Ed has hated since he was twelve.

There, on the porch, he slumps down and wraps his arms around his knees. Rain soaks through his thin nightclothes in seconds, chilling him to the bone. His teeth chatter and his skin prickles.

Guilt builds, an uncomfortable weight on his fast-beating heart. The look on Ed’s face when Al flinched away from him plays through his mind again and again. He bites his lip and sniffles. He doesn’t want to cry. He’s tired of it.

Tired of everything.

“Alphonse! Shit, Al, you can’t be out here, you could get sick, Winry’s gonna kill me—“

Ed appears at his side, already drenched through. Ed reaches out his right hand — his real, flesh hand — for Al, but suddenly Ed wears that same look he did when Al flinched from his touch earlier. He retracts his hand.

Al shakes his head and catches his brother’s hand with both of his small ones. He’s eleven, and he’s grown since was six, but not by much. Far too small for his age. He pulls Ed closer by his arm, until he’s forced to sit, and presses the palm to his cheek. It’s warm despite the cold water.

“Let’s stay here for a minute,” says Al, almost drowned out by the lashings of rain.

“It’s freezing! You could get sick—“

“Please?”

Ed huffs and, hesitantly, holds Al to his chest, wrapping both warm arms around his thin frame. Al does the same, letting his breathing even out to the beat of Ed’s heart.

“M’sorry,” Al mumbles.

“No, no, don't be. You’ve been so brave. You’re allowed to be scared now.”

Al hiccups. His tears soak into his brother’s shirt, mixing with the rain.

“When will we be okay? I want — I want to be okay again, brother.”

Pulling Al off him slightly, Ed looks into his eyes. His big brother is so much larger than him now it could almost be comical. His cheeks are wet. Al doesn’t think it’s rain.

“Maybe,” Ed swallows, brow creasing as he searches for the right words, “Maybe we don’t need to be okay right now. And, hell, who knows, maybe we’ll never be completely okay. Not really. You and I, we’ve been through some shit.”

Al laughs though his whimpers. Ed does too.

“But it’s okay that we’re not okay,” Ed says. “Ah, hell, that doesn’t make sense—“

“It does!” says Al. “It does make sense. Go on, you’re doing good.”

Ed makes a face. “What is this? Pep talk lessons?”

Al laughs more. The rain gets louder with him. After a second, Ed gazes into the distance, watching the far away yellow lights from the town below. He breathes. Al breathes too.

“I always used to think about the day the rain would stop. When everything will get better and I’ll be okay, I used to think,” says Ed. He looks too old. Then he locks eyes with Al and says, “I know now that the rain doesn’t stop. It comes and then it leaves, but it always comes back. Sometimes when you least expect it. It’s okay, though. Rain is needed for growth. Life. Without it, we can’t move on.”

They sit, and watch, and wait. Just for a little while. Al buries his head in Ed’s armpit. Ed laughs and flicks his ear.

“You cold, little man?” he says.

“Mm. Yeah.”

Ed threads his arm under Al’s skinny legs, the other around his back. He lifts him effortlessly.

“You’re so tall and strong now, brother,” mumbles Al.

“Don’t mock me, tiny,” says Ed, grinning. He carries him back into the house and Al slips back into sleep before he can say _I’m not mocking you_.

When he wakes, his clothes are warm and dry. Soft blue light slips through the curtains and rain patters against the windows. It’s a gentle sound, soft like oblivion. Ed’s arms are around him. Warm.

“You okay?” says Ed sleepily. He yawns.

“No.”

Ed frowns, propping himself up on his elbows. Al closes his eyes, and says, “Better than okay.” Al smiles as his brother splutters.

“Don’t scare me like that!” says Ed. Al cracks one eye open to find Ed fighting a smile. He ruffles Al’s hair.

They spend the morning like that, laughing and falling in and out of sleep. Not once does Alphonse see blood that doesn’t exist.

He thinks, if they’re still able to have perfect moments like these after everything they’ve suffered, then, yeah, they’re gonna be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> I had a really great time writing this. my first fic!! everyone who’s read, left kudos and ESPECIALLY people who commented have made it all so worthwhile. thank you thank you thank you!!!
> 
> u can find me on tumblr @steamedbunns. I do more art than writing over there but if anyone wants to scream abt fma with me/request more writing for this au ill be super happy to oblige (idk who would want that but. yknow)
> 
> thanks so so so so much for reading!


End file.
